› added 6 years ago

102

TIL of Timothy Hunter, a DC Comics character created by Neil Gaiman seven years before Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. He wears glasses, lost his mother when he was young, discovered he was destined to be a powerful wizard, and has a pet owl.

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69Ex8 TIL that after his military service, Lynn Compton (portrayed by Neal McDonough in Band of Brothers) was the prosecutor of Sirhan Sirhan for the assassination of Robert Kennedy
4XrJw TIL Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg suffered from a severe fear of the number 13. He predicted correctly that he would die when he was 76, because 7+6=13. He did die on July 13th, 13 minutes before midnight
e095L TIL there are multiple replicas of the White House, built mostly by private citizens, throughout the United States, and two in Iran and China (the Chinese White House includes a replica of Mount Rushmore as well).
4XxvR TIL of pokeweed berries. Found in our backyard, these berries look like a cross between blueberries and grapes. These berries are dramatically poisonous and can result in respiratory paralysis. Birds are immune to the poison; dogs, humans, and other mammals are not.
PYJWw TIL the British were the first nation to employ the use of Agent Orange as part of a starvation campaign during the Malayan Emergency in the early 1950’s. The US would adopt this strategy in 1961 in Vietnam.