› added 9 years ago

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TIL that the actual Navy pilot that flipped the bird at the MiG pilot in the movie Top Gun was Scott Altman, who later was selected an astronaut by NASA and flew on 4 Shuttle missions

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E1eOd TIL that African Romance is an extinct Romance language spoken in North Africa during the later centuries of the Roman and early Byzantine Empires, and several centuries after the annexation of the region by the Umayyad Caliphate in 696 AD.
9YlGm TIL that IPA (India Pale Ale) beer was invented because in the 1700s, it took a long time to ship beer from England to India that it would spoil in transit. So brewers increased the hops and alcohol content making it last the trip, but also gave it that distinct bitter taste.
7rYWp TIL that when in North Korea in 2011, graffiti saying “Park Chung Hee and Kim Jong Il are both dictators; Park Chung Hee a dictator who developed his country’s economy, Kim Jong Il a dictator who starved people to death” was found at a Pyongyang college, the entire city went into a 3 day lockdown
d80v7 TIL About the Lykov family, who isolated themselves in the Russian Taiga to escape religious persecution. They lived in total isolation for 40 years and were unaware that WWII had even happened. One daughter still lives there — at 74 years old.
8bOb TIL That the $100 bill has almost surpassed the $1 bill as the most common US currency denomination in the world.