› added 5 years ago

92

TIL during the 1992 L.A. riots, police officers asked the accompanying U.S. Marines to cover them while searching a house for a suspect that held his wife and children hostage. Mistaking the statement "cover them" for suppressive fire, the Marines promptly fired 200 rounds into the house.

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ZpAb4 TIL that when Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, hospital staff cut away his clothing. Finding a laminated card in his suit pocket, they discarded it into his shoe on the floor where it was left unattended. That card was the list of nuclear launch codes.
X05oE TIL Michelangelo wrote over 300 poems
R7eX7 TIL that there are 10 million descendants of passengers on the Mayflower.
8eX4L TIL that when Disney re-released it’s first of 20 Classics direct to VHS between 1984-1994, the first release (Robin Hood) was on sale for $79.95 in 1984, the equivalent of $236.04 today
6Y8Z TIL that Thomas Jefferson tried for years to send a gigantic stuffed moose to a French count to counter claims that the North American climate made all animals (including people) weak and feeble