› added 10 years ago

250

TIL Vietnam War POW Doug Hegdahl pretended to be illiterate to fool his captors, who believed him to be so stupid that they gave him almost free rein of the camp. He was able to secretly memorize the details of about 256 POWs to the tune of “Old MacDonald,” which he still remembers.

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x6XP0 TIL Lynn Redgrave is the only person to have been nominated for an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony without winning any of them.
6EwLQ TIL the Maya were not conquered by the Spanish until 172 years after Hernan Cortes first contacted them. Despite no standing army, Maya warriors were well-disciplined and trained regularly. every able-bodied man was available for military service.
4XYya TIL that in 1974, Fleetwood Mac's manager Clifford Davis assembled an entirely seperate group of musicians to take the mantle and name of the band after the original members declined to go on tour. The new band would go on tour, but audience members noticed the imposters, and refunds were requested.
lov75 TIL that Bhutan is the only country in the world whose nature converts more CO2 than the land itself produces.
vP16D TIL that the given (first) name of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (the Japanese Admiral who devised the attack on Pearl Harbor and much of Japan's success in the first part WWII) means the number "56" - his father's age when Isoroku was born.