› added 4 years ago

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TIL Xi Jinping's dad, Xi Zhongxun, was the only high ranking CCP member who defended, albeit unsucessfully, massively popular liberal reformist Hu Yaobang from being removed from office by Deng Xiaoping. Hu's purge and death years later sparked the Tiananmen Square protests.

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jNJBX TIL that between the 1940s and 1970s several Ivy League schools, including Harvard and Yale, took mandatory nude photographs of all freshman students
vPGy7 TIL that Arthur Rostron who was the captain of the RMS Carpathia when it rescued Titanic survivors, was known for having a deep attachment to the ships he served on. When the RMS Mauretania was taken away to be scrapped, Rostron was too upset to go on the last journey with his former vessel.
Z8JG TIL no Los Angeles police officers have died in the line of duty in almost 4 years
6EyaW TIL in July 1989 a Soviet pilot catapulted out of his MiG-23 over Poland, the plane flew another 1000 km. and crashed into a Belgium farm killing 1.
OokXX TIL that in the 70s, Stephen King published several books under a pseudonym, partly to test whether his fame was due to luck or talent: “Thinner did 28,000 copies when Bachman was the author . . . 280,000 when Steve King became the author . . . might tell you something, huh?