› added 3 months ago

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TIL Osama bin Laden's brother died by (accidentally) flying an airplane into a power line

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

R5dk8 TIL that Victoria Coren Mitchell's therapist, treating her intense fear of flying, died in a plane crash.
nerdY TIL that the common saying "you can't have your cake and eat it too" was originally phrased "you can't eat your cake and have it too." This conveys the meaning of the expression much more clearly, since once you eat a cake, you can no longer have it.
6E1Mw TIL that a retired teacher who had been having problems breathing for several months, after visiting doctor, found out that there was a pea plant growing in the lung.
JYQL4 TIL that in 1907, a Mexican railroad brakeman named Jesús Gracía saved the entire town of Nacozari by singlehandedly driving a damaged and burning train containing dynamite six kilometers away from the town before it finally exploded, killing him.
1YnV TIL the bad grammar and spelling errors found in scam emails & phishing attempts from Nigerian princes (etc) is done on purpose; spell checkers are intentionally not used: Research from Microsoft suggests that email scammers maximise profits by entrapping only the most gullible who overlook spelling