› added 1 month ago

8

TIL that during World War 1, Belgian pilot Willy Coppens came under fire from an enemy observation ballon during an attack run. In response he landed his plane on top of the ballon and turned off his engine. When the ballon descended he slid off and flew away.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

Ooy16 TIL a study of Holocaust survivors found that they passed their trauma on to their children. Their children were found to have an increased likelihood of stress disorders when compared to Jewish families who were living outside of Europe during WWII.
WkJlB TIL the bishop of Orlando is also bishop of the moon, due to a canon law that says "any newly discovered territory would fall under the bishopric from whence the discovering expedition departed." His is therefore the largest Catholic diocese, at over 14,000,000 square miles.
W10N TIL in 2005 the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, insulted Finnish cuisine and joked that Finns ate “marinated reindeer”. In 2008, Finland won an international pizza contest, beating Italy. The name of the winning pizza was “Pizza Berlusconi” and it was made of smoked reindeer.
4Jj5 TIL: 10,000 light years away from Earth, there is a huge cloud of alcohol. It is 1000 times larger than the diameter of our solar system and contains enough alcohol to fill 400 trillion trillion pints. To drink all of it, everyone on Earth would have to drink 300K pints each day—for 1 billion years.
E1W67 TIL scientists discovered a cypress tree in North Carolina that is at least 2,624 years old, which means the tree was alive for centuries before the advent of Christianity, the Roman Empire, and the English language.