› added 1 year ago

70

TIL that the USS Ward, the first ship involved in WW II when it sunk a sub sneaking into Pearl Harbor hours before the aerial attack, was commanded by Wm. Outerbridge. 3 years later, USS Ward was mortally damaged by Kamikaze, and ordered sunk by USS O'Brien, commanded by Wm. Outerbridge.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

LkdkV TIL: The Ogre Faced Spider's eyes are more sensitive than both a cat's and an owls, but every day at dawn the photosensitive portion of it's eyes are destroyed by the sun, and the arachnid has to regrow this portion each and every evening.
xVwvB TIL despite having PTSD after being buried alive by a bomb, & having a doctor's testimony that he'd been unfit to command, Eric Poole became the first commissioned officer to be executed by British military authority in WW1, after deserting
gM6Q9 TIL that when Mike Merrill considered getting a vasectomy or moving in with his girlfriend, the choice wasn't his to make. It was instead left up to 805 people who'd purchased his life. Merrill, a private citizen, sold 11,823 shares of his life to complete strangers who now control his decisions.
GjEg TIL The Koosh Ball, the non-bouncing rubber ball once described as a “cross between a porcupine and a bowl of Jell-O”, was invented because some kids were not good at playing catch. Its invention is chronicled in the book, The Secret History of Balls.
5xmR TIL, in 1981, a man who had been bullying residents of a small Missouri town was murdered in broad daylight when 46 townspeople rose up against him, in an act of vigilante justice. No charges were ever filed despite their being 30 - 40 witness to the shooting.