› added 4 years ago

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TIL that "Rohan" is a real place in France, as well as the fictional kingdom from The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien was aware of this and might have borrowed the word, but otherwise said there was no link between the two)

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via reddit.com

wo8L7 TIL that Operation Valkyrie, a plot to kill Hitler, failed because the bag containing the bomb was moved at the last second by a Nazi Official, saving Hitler
VMe90 TIL The earliest human settlement in Australia - dating back 49,000 years - was discovered by an Aboriginal elder looking for somewhere to pee
kOYad TIL of Robert Smalls, a slave who freed himself his crew & their families by overtaking Confederate ship, CSS Planter, and sailing it north. The ship contained a code book letting them pass CSA checkpoints. He became new captain of the ship & convinced Lincoln to admit African Americans to the Army
KQBw TIL in the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ that writer/director Harold Ramis original script had Andy McDowell’s character living the time loop with Murray, that Murray kept track of time by reading a single page a day in the library until finished, and the time loop lasts 10,000 years
4mER TIL Octopuses don’t actually have eight arms, they have only six while the remaining two are legs.