› added 6 years ago

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TIL of Jack Van Der Geest- a Dutch resistance fighter who was one of eight people to escape from Buchenwald. Pretending to be dead, at 80 lbs. he hid in a pile of bodies for 11 hours before killing a Nazi, stealing his uniform and a motorcycle to escape.

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4JDg TIL upon discovering an abandoned printing press in Belgium during the first world war, British soldiers decided to start publishing their own satirical newspaper from the trenches.
neGD7 TIL about an octopus named Otto who caused a power outage by shooting water at the 2000 watt spotlight over his tank which was seemingly annoying him. Otto is an interesting octopus who has also been caught juggling hermit crabs, throwing rocks at the glass and re-arranging the contents of his tank
8eLQV TIL that Winston Churchill was prescribed ‘Indefinite’ quantities of alcohol during prohibition
R5ZDj TIL that while the first computer built, the Z3, had only 176 bytes of memory: the first computer designed - over 100 years earlier - had 16.6kB of memory.
7r0yZ TIL lightning can appear high above thunderstorms near the edge of space. Called "Sprites", the red lightning can be dozens of miles wide and is often shaped like jellyfish.