› added 4 years ago

382

TIL that air raid shelter signs from the WWII blitzkrieg almost 80 years ago can still be found in London

Read more historynet.com

via reddit.com

LQ5r TIL that Malcolm X was declared mentally unfit for military service after telling draft board officials that he wanted to “steal us some guns, and kill us [some] crackers”.
6ag8 TIL In 1987, a 19-year old West German named Matthias Rust landed a small plane in Red Square in Moscow. With a combination of luck and human error, he flew over 500 miles from Helsinki, evading the largest air defense system in the world. He told Soviet authorities he was on a peace mission.
5YQ79 TIL that polar bears have black skin and hollow fur to absorb more sunlight while still remaining camoflagued
pYo48 TIL the reason that purple has traditionally been associated with royalty was because, in Ancient Rome, the only source of purple was milking and fermenting the liquid from a snail. It took 12,000 snails to produce 1 gram of dye! This made the Caesars declare it their exclusive color.
aPAb TIL that while filming Hans Gruber’s death scene in Die Hard, Alan Rickman was dropped a full second before he expected to fall, resulting in the look of shock present in the film.