› added 8 years ago

849

TIL 20 to 25 percent of US Army officers killed during the Vietnam War were fragged by soldiers under their command. Soldiers posted bounties in underground GI newspapers and pooled money to pay out rewards for the murder of targeted officers.

Read more isreview.org

via reddit.com

781Xp TIL that recruitment to the British Army's Gurkha unit is extremely competitive, accepting only 230 recruits out of 28,000 applicants. All recruitment happens in Nepalese villages, and candidates must participate in a two-mile race up a steep hill, carrying 35kg of rocks in a basket.
grPJ7 TIL we know leafcutter bees are at least 30 million years old because we’ve found fossilized leaves that age with the telltale circles leafcutter bees make.
4Ejg TIL in 1961 a B-52 broke up over Goldsboro, NC dropping two 3.8MT H-bombs, each exceeding the yield of all detonations in worldwide history by TNT, gunpowder, conv. bombs, and the WWII nuclear blasts combined. One came perilously close to detonating and creating “a very large Bay of North Carolina.“
R7AwQ TIL Chinese street vendors will often use a cheap 'cooking oil' called gutter oil. While it can be just recycled from normal sources, a major source is from fatbergs in sewers.
R7GE9 TIL that, right now, 9 languages a year, or one every 40 days, goes extinct and soon we will be losing our linguistic heritage at the rate of 26 languages each year—one every two weeks.