› added 6 years ago

78

TIL about Erwin Rommel's funeral. When the famous general and war hero was implicated in an assassination plot against Hitler, the Nazis let him commit suicide, in return for his family's safety. Rommel agreed, but demanded an apolitical funeral. The Nazis festooned his coffin was swastikas anyway.

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GweQ TIL 7.3 percent of all living Americans have served in the military at some point in their lives.
78WEx TIL that the James Webb telescope can capture objects of 1 nanojansky of brightness. Mike Menzel, an engineer on the telescope, explains: "If I was to put a child's nightlight on the surface of the moon, and look at it from the Earth, that would be 20 nanojanskys."
JxGB TIL Margaret Thatcher’s son conspired with a private mercenary company to stage a coup in a West African country for oil money
EgEXW TIL that California is named after a fictitious island described in a series of 16th century Spanish romance novels. The island was described as being inhabited by beautiful black women who wore gold armor.
0wj8M TIL That silver miners in the 1800s would discard their old work jeans in the mines. These jeans now can be sold for prices over $30,000, Levis going for the most! Many people have started hobbies going into the silver mines in hopes of finding them.