› added 8 years ago

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TIL that the former Mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman, spoke to a group of fourth graders and when asked about his hobbies, he said “Drinking Bombay Sapphire Gin”. When questioned about the statement, he replied with “If they didn’t want the answer, the kid shouldn’t have asked the question.”

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oRZE7 TIL: That Iceland is the safest country in the world in case of a nuclear war, because it is isolated from the rest of the world, doesn't have a standing army to target and generates all of its electricity from geothermal sources.
5YvgP TIL that for the 1973 Clint Eastwood western film 'High Plains Drifer' over 50 technicians and construction workers built an entire town—14 houses, a church, and a two-story hotel—in 18 days, using 150,000 feet of timber. Complete buildings, rather than facades, were built.
wMm8 TIL Chuck Yeager - first pilot to exceed Mach 1 - was shot down over France in WW2, taught bomb-making to Resistance groups who helped him, escaped into Spain, argued the high command into letting him back into combat against regulations, then became an Ace (bringing down 5 enemy aircraft) in 1 day.
o74R TIL In 1993, Dateline NBC ran a story on the danger of Gm pickups with sidesaddle gas tanks exploding upon impact. NBC was forced to apologize after it was revealed that they had staged the explosions in their crash test footage.
WgjB TIL “Prior to the first nuclear bomb detonation in July of 1945, isotopes such as strontium-90 and cesium-137 simply did not exist in nature.” Pieces of art and bottles of wine created before 1945 can be tested for cesium, if they contain traces of cesium they would almost certainly be fake.