› added 7 years ago

505

TIL in 1996 Tonya Harding, by then already a scandalous figure from the 1994 skating incidents, gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to an 81-year-old woman who collapsed at a bar in Portland, and was credited with saving her life.

Read more nytimes.com

via reddit.com

6E5PX TIL that flatworms reproduce by "penis fencing", where each worm attempts to stab the other with their penis. They are hermaphrodites, so the loser is impregnated.
QNLB6 TIL, after the death of 27-year-old physicist Henry Moseley at Gallipoli (WWI, 1915), the British Government placed a ban on other scientists of repute serving in front-line roles. Ernest Rutherford believed that Moseley's work would have earned him the Nobel Prize.
kOLj1 TIL at least 749 American servicemen were killed in England, April 1944, during large-scale rehearsals for D-Day. Rumoured 450 friendly fire deaths were followed the next day with 749 deaths by attacking E-boats. The incident was under the strictest secrecy and was only nominally reported afterwards
P1l4n TIL after making some anti-Semitic comments, Lou Reed was asked if he was Jewish, to which he replied: “Of course, aren’t all the best people?” However, when asked by journalist Lester Bangs about how his songs relate to being Jewish, Reed contrarily answered that he didn’t know any Jewish people.
m1K9o TIL about Ernst Leitz II, the CEO of Leica that helped to smuggle Jews out of Germany by "assigning" them to overseas sales offices, even if they weren't actually company employees. They were then given a free camera, helped to find jobs, and were paid a stipend until they could find work.