› added 9 years ago

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TIL Samuel James Seymour, the last surviving witness to the Abraham Lincoln assassination, was interviewed about in 1956 on the CBS quiz show “I’ve Got a Secret”.

94dB TIL - The drug that is used to dilate eyes (Atropine) is made from the “Belladonna plant” the name “bella donna” is derived from Italian and means “beautiful woman” because the herb was used hundreds of years ago in eye-drops by women to dilate the pupils of the eyes to make them appear seductive.
Z8NOY TIL that over 600 fighter pilots of the Swedish Air Force were killed in training exercises during the duration of the Cold War. Eventually in the 1960's flight safety became a concern because aircraft became more expensive.
gRJX TIL that a Pizza Hut manager during the Joplin tornado saved many lives by herding customers into a walk in freezer and bungee cording his arm to the freezer door before being sucked into the tornado and killed.
MeZQa TIL the re-introduction of extinct Red Kite to England in the 1990s was so successful that the population has grown to the point that it's now so large that it can no longer be counted accurately. English Kites are even being used to reintroduce the bird to other European countries.
nOwB TIL Nazi spies tried infiltrating Russia in WW2 using fake passports; the passports were recognized as fraud because Russian passports use iron staples that stain the pages with rust, while Nazis used steel. During the Cold War, American spies made the same mistake