› added 1 year ago

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TIL about the Amphicar, an amphibious automobile from the 1960s. US President Lyndon B. Johnson owned one, and he was known to frighten visitors at his ranch by driving them downhill directly into his property's lake, all the while shouting that he had malfunctioning brakes.

Mkl7 TIL that Credit Unions are ‘not for profit’ institutions that use profit to offer lower interest rates to members and distribute additional revenue to members in the form of dividends.
rRlrx TIL Mike Tyson has a professional boxing record of 23-0 at age 19, became the youngest Heavyweight Champion ever at 20, and was 35-0 (with 31 knockouts) and held the WBA, WBC, IBF, The Ring, and lineal heavyweight titles at age 21.
yVJD8 TIL Atom-bomb designer Hans Bethe fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and joined Cornell University where he stayed on as Professor until he died at 98 in 2005, the last of the giants of Los Alamos. The weapon’s reality “was worse than we expected,” Bethe recalled
GBlG TIL Albania’s economy was wrecked in the 90s when 2/3rds of the pop. was lured into govt-backed pyramid schemes which then failed. The chaos led to gangs seizing military arms and the govt. allowing citizens to arm themselves from armories. Gangs took over cities & navy ships as civil war broke out.
VB0rQ TIL that an American POW in World War 2 was questioned about US atomic bombs after the bombing of Hiroshima. He told them he didn't know anything about that, but when they threatened to kill them, he "revealed" they had hundreds and that Tokyo and Kyoto were next.