› added 11 years ago

69

TIL that Vladimir Arutyunian threw a grenade 65 feet from President Bush in 2005 at a speech in Georgia. The grenade malfunctioned and did not detonate.

Read more m.wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

LL09 TIL before the Emancipation Proclamation, Union commanders effectively “freed” Southern slaves they encountered by declaring them “contraband” and seizing them. The slaves were employed as non-combat laborers and given a wage and rations, and many later enlisted as soldiers in the Union Army.
QQ1M TIL a man single-handedly planted a 1,360-acre forest at 16 and now lives there at the age of 47
E1Nvx TIL Two French brothers hacked a national semaphore-based telecom system in 1834 to beat the stock market. Later caught, they were not convicted because no law existed to prevent their actions
7LYM TIL the 1980 satirical disaster comedy “Airplane!” is largely based on the 1957 drama “Zero Hour!” It follows the same plot, uses the same character name for the hero passenger, and parodies numerous scenes using the same dialog word for word.
B74e TIL that the Nazis, if victorious, planned to drain the Mediterranean Sea to create Atlantropa - a giant continent composed of Europe and Africa.