› added 10 years ago

69

TIL American fighter pilot William Bruce “Bill” Overstreet Jr. (April 10, 1921 – December 29, 2013) shot down a German Messerschmitt Bf-109G after chasing it through the arches of the Eiffel Tower.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

4kK8R TIL that J.M.W Turner once had himself tied to the mast of a steamboat in order to experience a snow storm so that he could paint it. This is what inspired his work Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth.
GwaN TIL Winston Churchill found so much enjoyment and relaxation in laying bricks he even joined and paid dues in the Bricklayer’s Union. He even inquired in a letter “is there is a rule regulating the number of bricks which a man may lay a day?…and what are the restrictions on overtime?”
4kKNJ TIL when Amtrak launched its high-speed Acela line in 2000, only about 37 percent of people traveling between New York and Washington made the trip but it grew to 83 percent by 2021
0dJyv TIL: The Akaname is a Japanese yokai (demon)... who licks the filth and scum present in bathtubs and bathrooms and translates to filth licker. It one story, it can transform into a beautiful woman who appears in a hot spring, offers to scrub a man's back, only to lick him down to the bones.
xWKk TIL Ben Stein graduated valedictorian from Yale law school