› added 6 years ago

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TIL The 24 Hours of Le Mans traditionally begins with a "standing start", where drivers run to their car. Feeling this type of start was unsafe, Jacky Ickx opposed it by walking across the track while his competitors ran. He was nearly hit by a car, and another was killed. Ickx won the race.

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AlDn TIL African immigrants in Switzerland have a crime rate of above 600% that of the native Swiss population
d8emQ TIL the Finns sarcastically dubbed the Soviet cluster bombs "Molotov bread baskets" in reference to Molotov's propaganda broadcasts. When the hand-held bottle firebomb was developed to attack Soviet tanks, the Finns called it the "Molotov cocktail", as "a drink to go with the food".
OoK7Y TIL a French man was surprised by his colleagues with a free ride in a French Air Force fighter jet going 870 mph (but had never said he wanted such a ride). He panicked, accidentally grabbed the ejector button and ejected himself at 2,500 ft altitude. He parachuted safely to to the ground.
69N1Y TIL that Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl never recorded the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" together in the studio. The record's producer, Steve Lillywhite, asked MacColl, his wife, to record the woman's part as a guide for someone else, but MacGowan liked it and rerecorded his part to match hers.
QJEj9 TIL the producers of The Simpsons considered aborting the series if the second episode’s animation turned out as bad as the first, which was so appalling that after seeing it for the first time, they had to redo 70% of before it could go to air.