› added 9 years ago

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TIL in 1932 Oskar Speck was an unemployed contractor in Germany who left via kayak to seek work, but en route changed his plan & decided to see the world. By 1939 he kayaked all the way to Australia. Unbeknown to him, WW2 started & upon arrival, he was detained as an enemy foreigner until WW2 ended.

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via reddit.com

KOyyJ TIL that the handgun manufacturer Beretta has been making guns since 1526, including Venetian cannons used during the Battle of Lepanto
8a0e8 TIL about the real-life Lord of the Flies, i.e. what happened when six teenage boys were shipwrecked on a deserted island for 15 months
ROBw TIL that before the late 17th century, humans’ sleep cycle was divided into two periods. The first sleep usually began at dusk, lasted four hours, and was followed by an hour or so of being awake. Then we had a second sleep, lasting another four hours.
7RrL TIL That most people in Cuba still drive old American cars from the 1950’s. There are about 60,000 classic American cars in Cuba today and if the embargo were to be lifted, the Cuban people could make a fortune off of these “Yank Tanks”
7r4Z7 TIL the most powerful volcanic eruption in the last 7,000 years, on the Indonesian island of Lombok, led to a global mini-ice age that contributed to the disappearance of the Greenland Vikings