› added 8 years ago

202

TIL the primary purpose of a Castle’s moat was to prevent attackers from tunnelling under the walls.

Read more medievalcastles.stormthecastle.com

via ift.tt

oBlBL TIL that Hong Kong is not the only ex-British colony in China. Weihai (formerly Weiheiwei/Port Edward) was also once an ex-British colony in China from 1898 - 1930
XvwD TIL that Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” was inspired by a real life aggressive sperm whale called Mocha Dick, a 70-foot long white whale covered in barnacles that possibly survived 100 skirmishes with whalers
R5xVa TIL After several previous attempts, the US finally completed the purchase of the US Virgin islands in 1917. The final push included prsssure from the sinking of the Lusitania and the US indicating they "might occupy" them to keep them out of Germany's hands.
Obna TIL Margaret Hamilton was the lead software engineer for Project Apollo. (Apollo 11 was able to land at all only because she designed the software robustly enough to handle buffer overflows and cycle-stealing.)
loPK TIL In the KATUSA program Korean men can serve their mandatory two year military service as a soldier in the United States Army