› added 12 years ago

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TIL thousands of historic maps are available for download by the Library of Congress.

Read more memory.loc.gov

via reddit.com

yG4p TIL that a young Richard Branson had his flight to the Virgin Islands cancelled, so he chartered a private airplane. Not having enough money to do so, he picked up a small blackboard, wrote “Virgin Airlines $29” on it, sold tickets for the rest of the seats, and used that money to pay for the ride.
X0n9r TIL Nico Harrison, a former Nike Executive, was responsible for botched shoe presentation for Stephen Curry, which caused him to switch from Nike to Under Armor
loXyG TIL flags are flown at half-mast because the invisible flag of death is flying at the top.
v1Vnj TIL the reason the film Selma didn't use MLK's actual speeches is because Steven Spielberg has the sole film rights to all of MLK's speeches in 2009. Ava DuVernay wrote speeches that were plausible, but different enough to avoid a copyright battle.
X0eAR TIL in 1516 Germany passed the Reinheitsgebot law stating only water, barley and hops be used to make beer. This was due to sanitation reasons and because unscrupulous brewers sometimes added hallucinogenic plants to their brew.