› added 12 years ago

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TIL the shortest commercial flight is between two islands in Scotland and can take as little as 47 seconds.

nWPro TIL that the US national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, uses the melody of a British drinking song, To Anacreon in Heaven, written by John Stafford Smith in the 1770s for London’s Anacreontic Society; a gentlemen’s club dedicated to “wit, harmony, and the god of wine.”
DVYP TIL Jason Mitchell, the actor that played Eazy E in ‘Straight Outta Compton’, couldn’t afford to fly out to Los Angeles for a callback audition. The director, F. Gary Gray, liked what he saw on his audition tape so he settled for a Skype meeting and Jason landed the part.
epkoJ TIL fine particles of dust can explode and rapidly combust, even innocuous objects like flour or corn starch, due to the very large surface area of dust relative to its mass. One incident at a "color party" throwing colored corn starch resulted in 15 dead and 498 suffering from burns.
0w8y1 TIL that mandatory right-hand traffic was introduced in Europe by Napoleon with the aim of deterring swordfighting on horseback, and because the traditional left-hand traffic was seen as aristocratic. Since he never conquered Britain, left-hand driving would remain there.
eWE5 TIL In 1967 Sweden switched from left-hand driving to right-hand driving. All vehicles had to come to a complete stop at 04:50, then carefully change to the right-hand side of the road and stop again before being allowed to proceed at 05:00