› added 11 years ago

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TIL that Pope Pius XII, who is often criticized for not speaking forcefully against Hitler, supervised a rescue network which saved 860,000 Jewish lives - more than all the international agencies combined.

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via reddit.com

78n1L TIL about stellar nucleosynthesis, the process by which chemical elements are created by nuclear fusion reactions within stars. The theory can be used to accurately estimate the abundance of elements, why abundance fluctuates, and why some are more common than others.
5YpR TIL on this day in 1977 (15/08/1977) a signal was received on the Big Ear Telescope in Ohio that is thought to be from outside our Solar System. No signal of this type has been received before or since this.
R7L6w TIL that Johnny Cash’s guitar player died in 1968. Cash found himself at a show where the temporary replacement, Carl Perkins, couldn’t make it. An audience member asked Cash if he could fill in for the night, and he said yes. Bob Wootton then became Cash’s guitar player for the next 29 years
VM5Zm TIL former NHL goalie Gilles Gratton believed he was an executioner who stoned people to death in a past life and was fated to be a goalie as punishment.
0wv9v TIL volunteers in Madrid watched for dog owners who didn’t pick up their dog’s poop, gathered the owner’s information by petting the dogs, then sent the poop to the owner’s home with a “lost and found” label. According to Mayor Borja Gutiérrez, “It’s your dog poop. We are just returning it to you.”