› added 11 years ago

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TIL that during the Falklands War, when the HMS Sheffield was sunk by Argentinian missiles, the crew members who made it into the water sang the song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Monty Python’s Life of Brian while they waited for rescue.

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kJWxm TIL Promissory Materialism is the belief that science will eventually prove the truth of materialism (i.e. the philosophical view that everything that exists is made up of matter or is dependent on physical processes) through discoveries that have not yet been made.
aowA TIL the US military once tried to build a radar detector-detector-detector detector in order to detect radar detector-detector-detectors, whose main purpose is to detect a radar detector detector, which were built to alert police to someone using an illegal radar detector
e1rL TIL that the smell of rain is called “petrichor” and is caused by oils released by plants during dry periods then absorbed by clay and soil. Humidity then releases these oils into the air
ZWOv TIL that Claudette Colvin was the first person arrested for resisting bus segregation. However, since she was only 15 years old (and pregnant), the NAACP decided their secretary, Rosa Parks, would better represent the movement as the ideal segregation protester who would spark the bus boycotts.
KOVVJ TIL that Nazi soldiers would regularly take a type of crystal meth called Pervitin, which was considered a "superdrug," to enhance performance, reduce fatigue and drain them of their empathy, effectively turning them into "ruthless killing machines."