› added 6 years ago

90

TIL In WW2, a B17 called Old 666 had all its guns upgraded to .50 calibre and single handedly fought off a group of Japanese zeroes during a mission. 2 crew members received the Medal of Honor

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

xVnMB TIL in 2018, NYC had a period where (for the first time ever) it had a lower murder rate than London, causing many people to believe London became more dangerous. In truth, it was likely heavy snow that caused the lower rate in NYC. By the end of the year, NYC had double the murder rate.
gMkRL TIL one of the best Go players in the world retired in 2019 after losing 1-4 against the AlphaGo program. He argued that he could never be the top Go player due to the increasing dominance of AI, calling them "an entity that cannot be defeated". He was the only one to win a match against AlphaGo.
k5Dm TIL that J. R. R. Tolkien, in a letter to his son Christopher, referred to World War 2 as the “War of the Machines,” and remarked that machines would be “the only victor.” He was highly critical of the harsh tactics employed by either side during the conflict.
16M6W TIL the Wenja language from Far Cry Primal is designed to be a hypothetical ancestor of Proto-Indo-European, the reconstructed common ancestor of many modern languages
ADv77 TIL William Peter Blatty won 5-thousand dollars while appearing on the game show, 'Your Bet your Life', in the 1950's. He said he would use the money to take some time off and write a novel. He went on to write, 'The Exorcist.'