› added 11 years ago

155

TIL Starvation can produce profound mental clarity. In one case a starving WWII POW became conversant in Norwegian in a single week.

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6lB8 TIL during Australia’s first ever plane hijacking in 1960, the copilot Tom Bennett punched the lone, armed hijacker in the face and then ripped the wires from the bomb he was holding, disarming it. He and the pilot then subdued and handcuffed the man, before landing all 43 passengers unharmed.
rvQM TIL that “Chinese” is not just “Mandarin” and “Cantonese”, but at least 7 distinct language groups, or hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible
8aaJV TIL Japan sells more adult diapers than baby diapers.
d8VKQ TIL that Singapore has been physically growing its borders for years by literally importing sand from other countries. Since independence, Singapore has increased its physical landmass by more than 20% already resulting in the complete disappearance of 24 islands in the Indonesian archipelago.
gQ08 TIL that WWII fighter pilot James Howard won the medal of honor for single handedly taking on 30+ German fighter planes all by himself to protect a group of American bomber planes.