› added 10 months ago

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TIL of Frederick Fleet who survived the sinking of the Titanic, WW1 and WW2, to die by suicide in 1965 at the age of 77.

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D1oye TIL Lyndon B. Johnson was known for wandering the White House turning off lights in rooms he thought empty, sometimes to the surprise of people working in those rooms! This earned him the nickname “Light Bulb Johnson.”
8eQbX TIL that Foresters Financial, a company that sells life insurance, originally required prospective members to go through a trial by combat
wgMJ TIL that two scientists proved time dilation by each flying around the world carrying a synchronized atomic clock. Upon landing, the clocks were no longer in sync.
yBje TIL of the H.L. Hunley, a fully functional naval submarine used by the Confederacy in the Civil War. Powered by hand cranks and armed with bouyant torpedos, it was the first submersible vessel in history to successfully sink an enemy ship
Z867a TIL Smart people believe stupid things thanks to five "intelligence traps". These include "motivated reasoning", which leads us build arguments that rationalise our own intuitive views (even if they are wrong); and "earned dogmatism" - the sense that you know so much you can ignore new information.