› added 12 years ago

96

TIL Frank Sinatra’s mother ran an illegal abortion business from her home.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

0LNA TIL that the German Blitzkrieg on France in 1940 was fueled in large part by crystal meth. A patented pill form of the drug called Pervitin enabled German soldiers to fight for days at a time without sleeping.
vYMr TIL in 1994, the pilot of an Aeroflot Airbus A310 allowed his son to sit at the controls during a flight. The boy inadvertently turned off the autopilot controls, sending the plane into hillside and killing all 75 aboard.
6nvQ TIL that John Argyropoulos, a humanist scholar who escaped the fall of Constantinople and tutored Lorenzo D'Medici died of consuming too much watermelon.
9YkK7 TIL in 1983 a mentally ill young man who shot himself in the head in a suicide attempt suffered a brain injury that apparently eliminated his phobia of germs and his obsession with washing his hands.
RGEw TIL that trial by combat may still be legal in much of the United States, having never been explicitly repealed.