› added 11 years ago

133

TIL Fewer than 49.9% of people in London are white.

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rRZRy TIL that during the Prague Uprising at the end of WWII, two escaped British POWs approached a garrison of Waffen-SS and claimed to represent a regiment of paratroopers and threatened to call in an airstrike on the building they occupied. The Germans surrendered.
5RZR TIL The coastline of Japan is one of the longest in the world, outranking that of Australia and the US. (Japan - 18,486 mi., Australia - 16,006 mi., US - 12,380 mi.)
woPK6 TIL that one of the most infamous Goya's Black Paintings titled "The Dog" is theorized to actually depicts a dog drowning. Apparently it was done when Goya was in his 70's when he was in mental and physical distress. It is thought that this painting portrays the idea of inevitability of death.
4XXGN A deadly outbreak of cholera followed the 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti three years ago this week. Jonathan Katz, the only American fulltime staff reporter stationed in Haiti at the time, explains what caused the outbreak--and why it was anything but inevitable.
BZNL TIL That if you called in a bogus distress signal to the Coast Guard and they sent a 378 WHEC Cutter to your rescue, the reimbursement cost is $17,602 per hour