› added 5 years ago

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TIL the greatest pirate of all time is a woman! She commanded over 300 ships with around 40,000 sailors. When finally defeated, she negotiated her way to freedom and became a casino and brothel owner.

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gr119 TIL in 1871 to support the need for more bells in the Cologne Cathedral, Kaiser Wilhelm I donated 24 captured French canons to be melted down and cast. The three ton bell created was named Kaiserglocke. Ironically the bell was melted down in 1918 to support the German war effort.
x4Z7 TIL the first man made aircraft to successfully land on another planet and send back data was the Soviet Venera 7 in 1970. After landing on Venus, the craft sent back only 23 minutes of weak data, presumably because it landed on its side.
J09V TIL that Sonny Landham, who played the quiet, reflective Native American tracker Billy in “Predator”, was notoriously violent and difficult to work with. Eventually, the insurance company for the film forced the studio to hire a full-time bodyguard to protect the cast and crew from Sonny.
9wWVD TIL that when a Manhattan Project scientist was asked to calculate whether a human being could survive exposure to a very high dose of radiation, she only learned later that the person that had received the dose was her husband.
yVlma TIL that the genetic disorder Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva is a disorder in which muscle tissue and connective tissue are gradually replaced by bone (ossified), forming bone outside the skeleton. People with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva are generally born with malformed big toes