› added 9 years ago

161

TIL Steve Buscemi was a volunteer firefighter on 9/11.

Read more reddit.com

via reddit.com

9wnPM TIL the ThrustSSC set the land speed record (at 1,227.986km/h) in 1997, and the record still stands. It remains the only land vehicle to have travelled faster than the speed of sound.
Q5E9 TIL the term ‘whipping boy’ comes from english nobility, where someone was assigned to take corporal punishment instead of royalty
WvnX TIL that in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson had wrote,“We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.” It was Benjamin Franklin who changed “sacred” to “self-evident” to champion rationality as opposed to religious providence
mxMwY TIL I learned that quarterbacks Joe Montana, Joe Namath, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, Johnny Unitas and George Blanda all grew up in and around Pittsburgh.
LkJNp TIL that in 1915, a pilot planned a stunt to drop a baseball into an MLB coach’s glove from a plane during a flyover. As a prank she dropped a grapefruit instead; it exploded in the coach’s glove and covered him in red pulp, and he was convinced he was seriously injured and bleeding to death.