› added 11 years ago

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TIL that the Colonel-in-Chief of the Norwegian Army is a penguin called Sir Nils Olav

Read more news.bbc.co.uk

via reddit.com

yQbYl TIL that the area code for Cape Canaveral, Florida, is 321, due to it sounding like the countdown for the liftoff of a rocket.
4gvR TIL that Russia was once ruled by an impostor who claimed to be Ivan the Terrible’s son. He is now known as “False Dmitry”, and it’s never been certain who he really was.
bRW7 TIL that the SR-71 “Blackbird” was so fast that a standard evasive maneuver in case it detected a SAM missile was simply to outfly the said missile. Also, out of the 12 losses, none of them were from enemy fire, but from accidents.
N7YO6 TIL To combat Exploding Casket Syndrome where some caskets literally explode due to buildup of methane gas manufacturers added "burpers" to their sealer caskets, gaskets that release — or "burp" out — accumulated gases as a preventative measure.
EgMrx TIL: A study of autopsy results found the mean age of death for tattooed persons was 39 years, compared with 53 years for non-tattooed persons. The presence of any tattoo was more significant than the content of the tattoo.