› added 9 years ago

98

TIL that a British sitcom called Dad’s Army, which was based around WWII, actually went on longer than the war itself.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

GGW4 TIL Pierce Brosnan lost both his wife and adopted daughter to ovarian cancer.
R7r6 TIL in 1914, a 19yo British boy was court martialed for desertion. He was undefended and called no witnesses, as all of his comrades had been killed in action. He was hastily sentenced, and on September 8th became the first WWI soldier to be executed for desertion. He was finally pardoned in 2006.
X05nP TIL: Lutz Long a Nazi German long jumper who shared training tips to Jesse Owens and was the first to congratulate him despite being in in full view of Adolf Hitler
W7ZyX TIL I learned that in 2007 an initiative called the Great Green Wall was started to restore the vegetation of the Sahel and to stop the expansion of the Sahara. The project is funded by the world bank(most of it). The wall goes across the entire part of Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia
1awdD TIL that in 2010 the Pope’s astronomer, Guy Consolmagno, claimed that if extra terrestrial life were ever to be discovered, and an alien life form requested the sacrament of baptism, then he would gladly baptise the alien.