› added 10 years ago

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TIL that when KAL007 was shot down, it was one of the most important single events that prompted the Reagan Administration to allow worldwide access to the United States military’s GNSS system, which was classified at the time. Today this system is widely known as GPS

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OoP5g TiL about the December 14th 1944 Palawan massacre where Japanese imperial soldiers lit American soldiers on fire by sounding an air raid siren to lead them to a trench filled with gasoline instead of an air raid shelter. Of the 150 American POWs only 11 survived and escaped to American lines.
X4jX TIL that the ancient board game “Go” was being played at a tournament in Hiroshima in 1945, when the atomic bomb went off only 3 miles way. Though the building was damaged and people were injured, they finished the match later that same afternoon (white won)
kDng TIL a Comcast customer who was constantly dissatisfied with his internet speeds set up a Raspberry Pi to automatically send an hourly tweet to @Comcast when his bandwidth was lower than advertised.
oAVW TIL that after being seriously burned in her disappearing scene in Munchkinland, Margaret Hamilton (The Wicked Witch of the West) refused to do a subsequent scene requiring her to ride a smoking pipe broomstick. Her fill-in was hospitalized for eleven days with serious burns when the pipe exploded.
4PrR TIL that author Harlan Ellison wrote and finished his story ‘I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream’ in a single night and did not make any changes from the first draft