› added 3 years ago

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TIL FDR was almost killed by a US warship in WWII. During a secret trans-Atlantic trip, he asked for ship demos. One accidentally fired a torpedo at FDR's ship (which moved fast enough to avoid the hit). Afterward, the destroyer was routinely greeted with the hail "Don't shoot! We're Republicans!"

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pYvEN TIL In the 60s/60s NASA would use brooms to detect flames from Hydrogen leaks as they were odorless & colorless.
VMMV0 TIL For the Apollo 11 moon landing conspiracy theory to be true, over 400,000 people would need to be part of the secret.
W0N4 TIL an African tribe still wears Victorian clothes, the style of former German occupiers that they’ve made their own
6WK7 TIL there’s 5 gigabits of useless background noise transmitted every second through the Internet (circa 2010)
Z8AZv TIL Japanese Emperor Hirohito, in his radio announcement declaring the country's capitulation to the Allies in WWII, never used the word "surrender" or "defeat" but instead stated that the “war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage."