› added 5 years ago

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TIL that the Mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana from 1932–1947 and from 1951 until his death in 1954 was Harry Baals

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e0BOJ TIL that after earning the Medal of Honor, John Basilone was offered an officer’s commission and stateside duty but refused. He instead volunteered again for combat and was killed in Iwo Jima while guiding a tank through a minefield on foot. For these actions, he was awarded the Navy Cross.
kOgwe TIL an operation in the Spring of 1945 named “White Buses” was organized by the Swedish Red Cross and Danish Govt to rescue people in concentration camps. Using white buses with the Red Cross seal they were able to get over 15,000 people to safety in neutral Switzerland
N7ge TIL: George Lucas was sure Star Wars was going to flop, so he made a friendly bet with Stephen Spielberg: That if Close Encounters of the Third Kind made more money than SW, he would get 2.5% of the profit for all time, and vice versa. Spielberg still gets enormous, grudging checks today.
7v0O TIL the deepest mine in the world, Mponeng in S. Africa, has rock faces 140-degrees due to proximity to Earth’s core, and is inhabited by “ghost minders” – pale criminals armed with AKs and beer bottle grenades who reside in the shafts for months at a time to steal gold.
D1rEV TIL that Southern live oak was a secret weapon of the USS Constitution, one of America's first naval vessels, that was nicknamed "Old Ironsides" after so many cannonballs bounced off her hull because live oak wood is a super dense wood.