› added 3 months ago

16

TIL that the US still circulates and mints new pennies in 2025

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g59W TIL Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, taught French at Eton to an Eric Blair, who would later go on to use the pen name George Orwell.
grvb8 TIL Aristotle's payment for teaching Alexander the Great was the reconstruction and repopulation of Aristotle's home village, which had been destroyed and enslaved by Alexander's father.
P1gGZ TIL in WW2, the US made 1.5 million Purple Heart medals because so many casualties were expected from the invasion of Japan. As this never happened, they are still using that stockpile of medals.
m1mQv TIL the first Oscars, in 1929, lasted 15 minutes and the longest ceremony was 2002, which lasted four hours and twenty-three minutes.
Mex9K TIL the helicopter that crashed during the Bin Laden raid did so because in the training exercises, they used a chain fence, rather than a solid wall like what surrounded the real compound. The solid wall meant heat got trapped and rose up, causing the helicopter to have different flight properties.