› added 8 years ago

200

TIL that in 1961, a 27 year old Soviet doctor stationed at the South Pole performed a self-appendectomy using a mirror. He fully recovered.

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J0o8 TIL Martin Van Buren was the first U.S. President for whom English was a second language (He spoke Dutch). He was also the first President to be born in America, (as opposed to British Colonial soil)
gr5aA TIL in 1923 the German Newspaper Vorwärts lost a libel trial brought by Adolf Hitler. They had claimed he was funded by "American Jews and Henry Ford."
b6yp4 TIL that Mountain Dew was originally a term for describing Scottish whiskey before bottlers Barney Hartman and Ally Hartman invented the soda of the same name in the 1940s.
yVZQ8 TIL In 2003 Space Shuttle flight director knew that Columbia's Thermal Protection System was damaged but decided to not tell the crew. He thought it would be better for them to have a happy successful flight and die unexpectedly during entry than to stay in orbit with oxygen running out
jNEga TIL the classic 1970 war movie Kelly's Heroes was based on an actual robbery of the Nazi gold reserves by a syndicate of US and German servicemen in 1945. It was covered up by the US and Germany and only two gold bars found in 1996 have been recovered worth about $1m at today's prices.