› added 5 months ago

33

TIL of Colin Fleming Brien, a WWII POW of the Japanese who survived his beheading, was buried alive, and dug his way out to make his way to a Japanese hospital where he recovered

Read more imtfe.law.virginia.edu

via reddit.com

WpRB TIL there is a statue on Rutgers that is said to whistle whenever a virgin walks by. Its been silent for 200 years.
9kLB TIL there’s a valve in fetal hearts that diverts blood away from the lungs while in utero. It begins closing at the first breath as the baby gets oxygen from it’s own lungs for the first time.
RBw8 TIL that when the Confederate Army was low on gunpowder, bat caves were raided for poop. Bat guano’s high nitrate content provided a key ingredient for the production of gunpowder.
N7J1E TIL of the 'Phantom of Heilbronn' a female serial killer sought by Austrian police for 16 years. It later transpired they were using contaminated swabs to collect DNA from crime scenes.
eAYE TIL due to the fact that the US Navy refused to help in the production of Crimson Tide, the producers couldn’t get footage of a submarine diving underwater. Their solution was to wait outside of Pearl Harbor and follow and film the first submarine to leave.