› added 2 years ago

199

TIL The city of Verona, Italy, where Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is set, receives thousands of letters addressed to Juliet every Valentine's Day. The letters are answered by a team of volunteers known as the "Juliet Club."

Read more npr.org

via reddit.com

b9pr0 TIL that 3 Honolulu firefighters were killed and 6 others injured after being attacked by Japanese planes while fighting fires at Hickam Field during the Pearl Harbor bombing. For their peacetime heroism, all 9 men received Purple Hearts, making them the only firefighters to awarded as such to date.
m1d9y TIL on January 5, 1941, 37-year-old pilot Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia, disappeared after bailing out of her plane over the River Thames, and is presumed dead. Her body was never found.
W7Y8X TIL Though the gangster John Gotti was nicknamed 'The Teflon Don' for his ability to dodge criminal charges his violent and public tactics led to the arrests of many Gambino crime family members. Gotti was convicted in 1992 and by the 2000 half of the Gambino made men were behind bars.
Gy0Q TIL that before Billboard took control of the Canadian singles chart in 2007, the #1 song was Nine Inch Nails’ “Survivalism” - the fifth rock-oriented #1 that year. The first #1 on the revamped Canadian Hot 100 was “Umbrella” by Rihanna. Not a single rock song has hit #1 since.
ADKXB TIL of a family that lived in Kentucky know as the Blue People of Kentucky. This family is notable for carrying a rare genetic trait that leads to the disease methemoglobinemia, which gives the affected person blue-tinted skin.