› added 11 years ago

96

TIL That the United States Army is officially designated as a terrorist organization by the Iranian government.

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4kmnR TIL about Christine Granville, a WW2 spy and Polish aristocrat - Winston Churchill would declare her as his favourite spy. She talks her way into service with M16, gets captured by Germans twice but escapes, and rescues her lover from execution by firing squad.
X01v6 TIL A galactic "second" is eight earth years. The "big year"—a complete rotation of the Milky Way—takes 250 million of our local years to complete, making a comparable "day" nearly 700 thousand years, an "hour" 25,500 years, and a "minute" 475 years. A galactic "nanosecond" is 1/4 of an earth second
jwdv TIL Lavrentiy Beria, head of the NKVD (KGB precursor), abducted, raped and even murdered numerous women. Later, when he was executed, a rag had to be stuffed into his mouth to stop his begging and crying.
XEjvE TIL the private railroad car was invented for a tour by Swedish soprano Jenny Lind in the United States
wkBo TIL that it took 5 years to make the stop action movie Wallace and Gromit, taking a whole days worth of work to film one second worth of movie.