› added 5 years ago

101

TIL that moveable type printing was invented by a Chinese man named Bi Sheng 300 years before Guttenberg. He was largely forgotten due to his status as a peasant.

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e7l5 TIL that an Cuban-American FBI agent spent 3 years undercover in the Gambino crime family, convincing everyone he was Italian. He nearly became a made member of the family before the investigation was stopped.
a8jjb TIL Dynamite is pretty much just tiny algae fossils soaked in nitroglycerin
wno7 TIL the only coup in US history occured in North Carolina in 1898. A mob of white supremacists armed with rifles and pistols marched on City Hall in Wilmington and overthrew the local government, forcing both black and white officials to resign. The leader of the mob was later elected as mayor.
jmbQ TIL since 1944, there’s a ship with 1.4 Kilo tonnes of vaguely live bombs lying in the Thames river in London.
v1wXj TIL of the ‘Mass-Observation Diarists’ who were hundreds of volunteers in the U.K. during WWII who made regular diary entries. They wrote about the intimate details of their lives as well as their thoughts and feelings about the world around them. The result was an intimate portrait of British life.