› added 6 years ago

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TIL that the Earl Louis Mountbatten, Prince Philips's uncle, was assassinated. In 1979, an IRA assassin planted a radio controlled bomb on his personal fishing boat, killing him and several others on board.

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Yp5MW TIL the sci-fi technology of the "mass driver" or electromagnetic catapult is real. The first prototype was built in 1977 for only $2,000, and the device was theorized by a sci-fi writer in 1937.
OoA81 TIL the Jewish-American mafia played of the name of the Sicilian mafia "Cosa Nostra" ("Our thing") by dubbing themselves "Kosher Nostra"
R78J7 TIL of Vasily Blokhin. He was the Chief Executioner for the Stalinist NKVD. He holds the world record as the "Most Prolific Executioner" with 7,000 recorded executions in 28 days.
dWBZ TIL that the mother of Ernest Hemingway (author, soldier, hunter, boxer, drinker, famous manly man) often dressed young Ernest and his older sister in matching pink flowery dresses (and similar outfits) to fulfill her obsessive desire to instead be mother to a pair of twin girls.
JYgrV TIL that BMW released an ad on April 1st 2015 saying that they would give away a brand new BMW in exchange for any old car. Suspecting it to be another April Fools prank, no one showed up except one woman. She came in with her 15 year old station wagon and walked off with a £25000 BMW.