› added 11 years ago

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TIL serious anthropologist Morris Freilich researched the famous fearlessness of Mohawks in skyscraper construction by getting drunk with them at their favorite bar, until they admitted that running and dancing on high exposed steel was just for show, and they were scared shitless the whole time.

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E1wYV TIL FDR was almost killed by a US warship in WWII. During a secret trans-Atlantic trip, he asked for ship demos. One accidentally fired a torpedo at FDR's ship (which moved fast enough to avoid the hit). Afterward, the destroyer was routinely greeted with the hail "Don't shoot! We're Republicans!"
j6Z9j TIL that the work of composer Antonio Vivaldi was almost completely lost until the 20th century, when violinist Fritz Kreisler published one of his own pieces as a fake "Vivaldi". This prompted a major resurgence in academic interest in Vivaldi, and his "Four Seasons" is now especially famous.
yXle TIL in 1945 a group of Soviet school children presented a US Ambassador with a carved US Seal as a gesture of friendship. It hung in his office for 7 years before discovering it contained a listening device.
W7pRX TIL I learned that there are bullet holes on the roof of the Spanish parliament building as a remember of the coup in 1981.
Me7bK TIL that arguably the person credited with saving the most lives in human history is WWI chemical weapons scientist, Fritz Haber. His work directly lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands during the war, while accidentally saving billions from starvation by developing a way to convert N2 to NH3.