› added 4 years ago

1432

TIL of the Battle of Gate Pā in 1864 where Maori troops defeated a British force six times larger.

Read more nzhistory.govt.nz

via reddit.com

4Xma5 TIL Ukrainian Ivan Kharchenko personally defused more than 1500 bombs weighing more than 500 kilograms each and 25,000 other explosive objects during the battles of Stalingrad and Kiev. After WW2, he disarmed 16,000 more unexploded bombs
loG47 TIL that a significant contribution to the 2003 NE blackout was the tendency of high-voltage lines to sag under high current. As one power line sagged, touched an unmaintained tree and faulted, the load on remaining lines increased, causing a cascade of sagging onto trees and faulting.
PYZkn TIL that General Dwight Eisenhower wrote a letter before D-Day, accepting full responsibility in case the Allied invasion of Normandy failed
grWE9 TIL at the turn of the 20th century, baseball umpires were prominent community members chosen from the crowd. They were given easy chairs in the general vicinity of home plate, a fan for hot days, food, and beer.
VwjG TIL that in 2010 a british policeman drove an Ice cream van into the middle of a riot and played “ice-cream van” music in an attempt to calm the youths. The official report was, ‘humour defused the situation and the trouble stopped’.