› added 9 years ago

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TIL a Japanese pilot who attacked a town in Oregon during WWII returned 20 years later to present his family’s 400-year-old sword as a symbol of regret. His daughter later said, if he had received a hostile reaction, he would’ve used the sword to perform a ritual suicide by disembowelment instead.

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O84Y TIL holding a sword by the blade and using the hilt as a bludgeon was a technique called the “murder strike” in German fencing.
BrnKb TIL that zippers are the leading cause of penile injuries
69XyZ TIL the first artificial ice rinks were made using hog's lard and salts
LkJNp TIL that in 1915, a pilot planned a stunt to drop a baseball into an MLB coach’s glove from a plane during a flyover. As a prank she dropped a grapefruit instead; it exploded in the coach’s glove and covered him in red pulp, and he was convinced he was seriously injured and bleeding to death.
JZb1 TIL that England still has a High Court of Chivalry. It last sat in 1954 after a 200 year break and its first ruling was to decide whether it still existed.