› added 13 years ago

142

TIL on August 25, 1914, in retaliation for Belgium’s guerrilla tactics in defending their country, German troops burned Leuven’s University Library, destroying hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable medieval-period books, manuscripts, and treasures.

Read more historyofinformation.com

via reddit.com

e01eb TIL that the murdered body of a man was found 40 years later after an unusual for the area fig tree grew out of a seed in his stomach.
ppj8 TIL that alligators have been a long-running problem for NASA, including climbing over their fences and entering buildings over night
Lk6vm TIL that during his Nobel Prize speech, Alexander Fleming warned about the potential for antibiotic resistance with improper use of Penicillin
Np5b TIL when Samuel Wallis and his crew discovered Tahiti, they were given a friendly welcome. The relationships became particularly friendly when the sailors discovered that the women were eager to exchange sex for iron nails. This trade became so extensive that the loss of nails destroyed the ship
JMB8 TIL 3 of Adolf Hitler’s cousins live quietly in Long Island New York. None of them have children and it is rumored that they refuse to have children so the family line with die with them.