› added 3 years ago

117

TIL of Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German diplomat who during WW2 warned Danish Jews of their impending deportation and organised their rescue to Sweden, resulting in 95% of Jewish Danes fleeing successfully.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

4kpLa TIL that in 1950, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, synthesized a highly radioactive element by bombarding curium-242 with alpha particles. They named this new element "Californium" and its discovery was initially kept classified due to its potential military uses.
dDJP9 TIL that the first nuclear bomb test done by the United States Army, called the Trinity test in 1945, was so powerful that it melted desert sand into a unique green glass now called trinitite.
ygRJ TIL that when Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys died, he wished for a burial at sea. Only veterans of the US Navy and Coast Guard are allowed a burial at sea without being cremated, but President Reagan directly intervened and allowed Dennis to be buried at sea.
7rWKX TIL Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, was so fascinated by the imagined slang language he created, he compiled a dictionary of all its words. Thought to be lost, the dictionary of Burgesses' slang was rediscovered in 2017
9wgXM TIL - of the Danbury Trashers, a short lived UHL hockey team started by garbage boss and mob associate James Galante who appointed his 17-y/o. son as President and GM. In their 2 seasons they set a UHL record for penalty minutes before Galante was arrested and the team folded.