Post * DMAg — Curious Curator

› added 9 years ago

76

TIL the first US Warship to be named after a black man was named in 1943 for sailor Leonard Roy Harmon. Harmon worked serving food to officers, one of the few jobs available to black sailors. At the battle of Guadalcanal, however, Harmon deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire to save a shipmate.

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aw1AN TIL In 2013, San Diego's City Attorney prosecuted a man for writing anti-bank messages in washable chalk on a public sidewalk. He faced 13 counts of vandalism and thousands of dollars in restitution. The jury acquitted him of all charges.

epVjE TIL: honeycombs start out circular, and the surface tension of the beeswax pulls them into hexagons as it solidifies, because it is the most energetically favorable conformation.

EwvP TIL that Libyan dictator Gaddafi gave the Irish Republican Army four tons of Semtex. The IRA sold the plastic explosive to FARC in Colombia with bomb-making technology and training, charging $1 million per class for 28 classes

Z8Era TIL That after stepping down in 1990, Augusto Pinochet remained the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army under the democratic government until 1998.

nWE4B TIL on the Soviet supersonic plane Tu-144 it was so noisy people sitting next to each other could only hear each other by yelling. People sitting two seats from each other couldn't hear each other even screaming.