› added 9 years ago

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TIL that a sentry assigned to guard Napoleon’s house in Austria did not recognise him and threatened to stab him with his bayonet. The next day, he was awarded the Legion of Honor by Napoleon for doing his job so well.

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DQPjV TIL Japan Airlines has a museum in their training facility that displays parts of the wreckage from the deadliest single-aircraft accident in aviation history to help educate future employees with no memory of the JL(JAL)123 crash of the importance of flight safety.
0w8JL TIL about Michel Lotito. Throughout his life he ate 18 bicycles, seven TV sets, two beds, 15 supermarket trolleys, a computer, a coffin (handles and all), a pair of skis, six chandeliers and an airplane (Cessna 150) piece by piece.
4Ek5 TIL that a popular Japanese guitarist was so well-loved that 50,000 people turned out for his funeral, 3 committed copycat suicide in the week following his death, and that a museum about him was open for five years
E1rdx TIL that the first animal balloons were made by Aztecs around year 1300, using real animal intestines; stomachs and bladders were also used. The intestines would be cleaned, sealed, filled with air and twisted to make dog and donkey shapes. These balloons were used as a sacrifice for gods.
dDjD7 TIL Cary Grant turned down The Bridge on the River Kwai just to work with Marlon Brando in The Pride and the Passion. But Brando, calling the script “mediocre at best,” bailed. Grant filmed it with Sinatra instead, and it flopped, while The Bridge on the River Kwai became an Oscar-winning classic.