› added 1 year ago

40

TIL there were "hundreds of thousands of instances of torture" by the French military in Algeria during the Algerian War.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

rRwvd TIL that Paul McCartney, as a vegetarian and animal rights activist, only agreed to appear on The Simpsons if Lisa's decision to become a vegetarian in that episode was made permanent. He is literally the only reason Lisa is still a vegetarian.
yQ4ja TIL Scotland banned Christmas for nearly 400 years. It didn’t become a public holiday until 1958.
BrMmL TIL that in 2003, an Airbus A300 cargo plane landed safely in Baghdad despite being struck by a missile on the left wing, losing a fuel tank, and losing all hydraulic control surfaces, forcing the pilots to guide the plane to an airport using only engine thrust to steer the plane.
VB0gk TIL that the term 'spinster' derives from the profession of spinning and threading yarn in the 1300s, one of the few jobs available to lower-status, unmarried women -- and this term carried no stigma initially
OGMVL TIL American cars in the 1980s were legally prohibited from showing speeds above 85mph on the spedometer