› added 1 year ago

51

TIl about RM Colonel Mark Nicholas Grey who in 1993 helped save thousands of life’s in Croatia by exceeding his authority and opening a spill way gate at Peruća Dam after the Serbs detonated explosives on it. His actions lowered water levels by several meters and the dam did not fail

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

yQ5lV TIL that according to John Lennon, the ticket mentioned in the 1965 Beatles hit “Ticket to Ride” refers not to an actual ticket for travel, but refers to cards carried by prostitutes in 1960s Hamburg to indicate a clean bill of health.
oBvE7 TIL in Louisiana, a jury can convict a murder suspect with a 10-2 vote.
78Rdp TIL there are literal mountains of 'trashed', rentable bikes in china - with a lot of them looking like new
6EVal TIL that the text in ReCAPTCHA security codes looks so strange because they're actually helping to digitize books and other text. The company has designed their system so that humans enter the words optical character recognition software can't recognize. Their old slogan was "Stop spam, read books."
VMQPk TIL of Harold Wobber, a 47-year-old war veteran who committed suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge. After his death, his suicide note was found and read: "I'm going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I won't jump."