› added 5 years ago

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TIL That Paul Tibblets, the pilot of the Enola Gay when it dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima, did not have a funeral or headstone on his death, fearing it would become a site for protest. Instead he was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the English Channel.

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wo76 TIL many American vodkas really are the same. They’re produced by a handful of commodity giants and sold to brands for dilution, filtering, and packaging. One distillery fills 3 separate brand partner bottles with the same potato vodka.
ZOED TIL that in South Africa,2009, an employee of an IT company complained that data would get transferred faster by carrier pigeon than on ASDL. Winston the pigeon armed with 4gb memory stick took two hours to carry the data 60 miles - in the same time the ADSL had sent 4% of the data.
Apbx TIL that in 1962 the CIA tipped off South Africa’s intelligence service about the location of Nelson Mandela, leading to his arrest that put him in jail for 27 years
yQR1X TIL Guinea was the only former colony that refused a partnership with Communauté, the French equivalent of the British Commonwealth. Guinea severed all ties with France, proclaimed its independence, and tried unsuccessfully to abolish French as official language of instruction for local dialects
GnlE TIL the realization that the random people you encounter each have complex lives of their own has a name: Sonder