Post * epeb5 — Curious Curator

› added 2 years ago

51

TIL the second highest scoring fighter ace with 301 kills, Gerhard Barkhorn, crashed a prototype British Harrier jet fighter in 1965. When being helped from the wreckage he is said to have commented, "Drei hundert und zwei [302]!"

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X0DpQ TIL that according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term "grandfather clock" originated from the popular song "My Grandfather's Clock", written in 1876 by American composer Henry Clay Work.

yQXYV TIL The Vatican has a telescope in Arizona. The Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) is part of the Mount Graham International Observatory and is operated by the Vatican Observatory, one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world.

QNXDe TIL Richard Phillips survived the longest wrongful prison sentence in American history by writing poetry and painting with watercolours. He also had the opportunity to kill the man who helped put him away, but he chose not to. He’s due to be paid $1.5 million for being wrongfully convicted.

woKrM TIL Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was the first billionaire to fall off the Forbes billionaire list because of charitable giving: "You have a moral responsibility when you've been given far more than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently."

e49k TIL when Einstein died in 1955, the physician who conducted his autopsy at Princeton stole his brain and took it home to perform “research”, for which he was ultimately fired after refusing to return the brain. Decades later, he drove to California to return the brain to Einstein’s granddaughter.