› added 5 years ago

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TIL infamous cult leader Jim Jones poisoned his followers with Flavor Aid (not Kool-Aid); earlier, he'd been awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award for his progressive integrationist views.

WPld TIL in WW2 Japan unwittingly created one of the best fighter aircraft of the war. When the inline engines intended for the Ki-61 were destroyed in a bombing raid, engineers shoehorned in a radial engine instead. The resulting amalgamation was the venerable Ki-100.
awRmM TIL It took the steam engine to make the horse popular and affordable. As rail, canals, ferries, and ports brought more and more goods across continents and oceans, horse populations increased exponentially to collect and distribute all those goods, becoming "the backbone of 19th century life".
BrAKD Today I Learned that 3-toed sloths and 2-toed sloths aren't closely related to each other, and each group evolved the tree-hanging lifestyle independently, an example of convergent evolution.
wobgW TIL Johnny Depp reportedly spent £40,000 on 500 warm waterproof hiking jackets for the crew of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) after the production staff were affected by cold weather while filming at Buckinghamshire's Pinewood Studios.
vPQO7 TIL Italian Fashion House Fendi is Headquartered in a 1938 Building That Has 6 Rows of Vertical Arches for Each Letter of "Benito" and 9 Columns of Arches for Each Letter of "Mussolini" Because it was Designed During Fascist Italy