› added 11 months ago

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TIL Gunter Schabowski accidentally announced the opening of the Berlin Wall at a press conference in 1989. He had not reviewed the press release script and was absent during the Politburo deliberations.

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LQVk0 TIL: Nine percent of college-educated parents want their kid to play professional sports, versus forty-four percent of parents without a college degree.
7r9eM TIL that there is 1400 tons of unexploded (and rapidly degrading) munitions 1.5 miles off the coast of Kent (UK). If it explodes, it would likely cause a bigger explosion than the one in Beirut.
Qkk6 TIL that Winston Churchill owned a platypus named ‘Bulldog’ whom he considered his 'personal mascot in conflict’. Bulldog died on the final day of the Battle of Britain.
Br0bk TIL during the meltdown, Chernobyl electrician Oleksander Lelechenko saved his younger colleagues from radiation exposure by walking through radioactive water three times to effect emergency repairs alone. He died in Kiev hospital less than 2 weeks after the disaster
0w8oR TIL that Quentin Tarantino is allegedly working on a Star Trek film, which he plans to also direct. He has described its story as "Pulp Fiction in space".