› added 5 years ago

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TIL that Bob Marley’s father was not actually a captain or heroic war icon, but instead was described as “neurotic (and) incontinent.” He likely worked in laundry or lavatory cleaning before joining the British MP in Lagos, Nigeria.

BrgYK TIL Eaths magnetic poles flip on average every 200,000 - 300,000 years. Last time it flipped? 780,000 years ago.
KOwG9 TIL that you are guaranteed a lawyer if you cannot afford one (in the U.S.) because a poor man was convicted unjustly, began reading law in prison, and wrote the Supreme Court, saying that he should have been given a lawyer despite his lack of money. He was retried and acquitted.
VV8k TIL that due to a popular anime cartoon, thousands of raccoons were imported from North America for Japanese children to keep as pets. When the cartoon’s protagonist later released his raccoon into the wild on the show, many of the pet owners did the same, creating chaos in the ecosystem to this day
p58N TIL That SR-71 pilots sometimes came from bomber aircraft because nobody else had experience in long supersonic flights. A crew taken from a B-58 Hustler ended up setting a world record for longest supersonic flight after flying the SR-71 for over 10 hours… over 15,000 miles. Nonstop.
gMNjL TIL the Netherlands loaned 2,5 million dollars to John Adams, who was the ambassador to NL back in 1782. This was done in order to stabilize the US after their war of independence finished. In today's value that would be a loan of roughly 150 billion dollars.