› added 13 years ago

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TIL that during a siege in 1857, a mysterious Scottish soldier watched one his comrades get shot, and announced that he had joined the regiment simply to see that man die. He then ran into a breach singing Bible verses and trying unsuccessfully to get himself killed.

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DKvj TIL that when actor Glenn Shadix died in 2010 (who played Otho in the 1988 film ‘Beetlejuice’) the song 'Day-O’ by Harry Belafonte was played at his memorial service, a song he helped repopularize in that film’s famous dinner-party scene.
QJnZ6 TIL near the end of WWI, a small fortified town in France called Le Quesnoy was liberated from the Germans after four years of occupation, by New Zealand soldiers in a sneak attack, with zero civilian casualties. Multiple memorials and many of the town's streets are named in NZ's honour.
YvpG TIL - In 2004 and 2007, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) survey found that Comcast had the worst customer satisfaction rating of any company or government agency in the country, including the Internal Revenue Service.
Brwoe TIL that the blue whale heart rate was measured for the first time last year! It gets as low as 2 beats per minute, raising up to 37 when it resurfaces (more oxygen access). It works at physiological extremes, and explains why the whale never evolved to be even bigger.
PnxZ TIL there is a condition called Neurasthinia, aka Americanitis, involving fatigue, flatulence, anxiety, and mild depression, caused by white-collar jobs and a competitive business environment.