› added 11 years ago

113

TIL - US Air Force honours their fallen with a fly-by salute, called “The Missing Man” in which the formation flies very low and the leader’s wingman pulls up rapidly, which represents departure to heaven. This is an aerial equivalent of riderless horse.

P10GE TIL Unlike the majority of the US, Delaware was once a Swedish colony called New Sweden, established during the Thirty Years' War. Settlements were established in present-day Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. New Sweden existed from 1638 to 1655 before being conquered by the Dutch
kOB5e TIL that the largest trebuchet ever made was called 'War Wolf' and, at ~400ft tall, was so massive and intimidating that it made the Scots surrender on sight. Despite this, it was fired anyway to observe the destruction it would cause.
E1ax0 TIL when a young boy visiting the White House doubted that First Lady Pat Nixon lived there because he could not see her washing machine, Pat led him through the halls and up an elevator, into the family quarters and the laundry room to show him.
6ExXW TIL Sylvester Stallone commissioned Arkansas Knife Maker, Jimmy Lile, to create a knife for Rambo. Lile, instructed not to make a prop, responded with a blade that could "Cut through the fuselage of an aircraft" and a unique hollow handle to store survival necessities.
x6LxB TIL on 1993, at 17, David Hahn, a young teenage nuclear radiation enthusiast, managed to create a neutron source in order to build a breeder reactor in his mother's backyard