› added 6 months ago

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TIL about the fall of Alan Magee. A B-17 ball turret gunner in World War II, Magee fell more than 20,000 feet without a parachute when his plane was destroyed by flak. He smashed through the roof of a French railroad station, survived, and spent the rest of the war in a prison camp.

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xaaw TIL there was a band of 150 gay couples from Thebes, who defeated a Spartan army, and went undefeated for 30 years. The Sacred Band of Thebes
4kRbJ TIL Yakuza members have a ceremony called Sakazuki where they drink sake to pledge their loyalty. They perform a ritualistic penance called Yubitsume where they cut their pinky finger which is integral when it comes to holding katana
RQb6 TIL Doc Holliday’s last words were “This is funny”. He always figured he would be killed someday with his boots on and was looking at his bootless feet, amused, while a nurse attended to him and denied his request for a shot of whisky.
8jYP TIL Isaac Asimov refused the invitation to visit friend and famed A.I. pioneer Marvin Minsky’s lab at MIT in the 1960s because he was “Writing about really intelligent robots of the future and was sure that if he came and saw the clumsy ones that we were making it would spoil his imagination.”
xpGb TIL Marc Bloch, a loyal Frenchman & historian, was captured by Nazis in Vichy France & lined up to be executed. Next to him during the execution a boy groaned, “This is going to hurt,” which then Bloch replied, “No, my boy, it doesn’t hurt.” He held the boy’s hand & shouted “Vive La France!”