› added 6 years ago

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TIL: A hijacked Ethiopian Airlines plane was headed to Switzerland, but had to be intercepted by French/Italian fighter jets because the Swiss Air force doesn't work on nights and weekends.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

p8dL4 TIL the US Army suppressed a movie on the psychological affects of war on veterans called Let There Be Light. It was made just after WW2 and wasn't released until the 1980s, over 30 years later.
VpDZ TIL that big pharmaceutical companies have been known to sue smaller ones to force the smaller companies to accept cash in exchange for not producing generic drugs
QJ9YX TIL that when a cruise ship started sinking in 1991, her captain abandoned ship without helping the passengers. In the end, the ships entertainers organized the evacuation. The captain even contacted them from shore and asked them how it was going.
e0B7b TIL of an estimated 1.5 million species of mushrooms and fungi, about 75,000 have been named by scientists, 1100 have documented uses, and 10 are regularly grown for food
ZGJG TIL that even though the Hindenburg was inflated with 7 million cubic feet of highly flammable hydrogen gas, it had a smoking room behind airlock doors.