› added 5 years ago

80

TIL of the marquis de Favras, who upon reading his death sentence, remarked "I see that you have made three spelling mistakes"

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

OGZ1a TIL the idiom “the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray” originates from a Scottish poem in 1786: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley, / An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, / For promised joy”
mQkR TIL that Günther Quandt who is the founder of BMW, was a member of the Nazi party and supplied the Nazi regime with ammunitions. Hitler gave him the title of Wehrwirtschaftsführer or “Leader in the War Economy.“
N7mM1 TIL the Voyager I and II space probes, which are currently racing through interstellar space, each include a golden record with 115 analog-encoded photographs, greetings in 55 languages, a 12-minute montage of sounds on Earth and 90 minutes of music (including Chuck Berry's 'Johnny B. Good')
mDgv TIL hundreds of schools collapsed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, killing more than 5000 students. Instead of conducting investigations into the companies responsible, the government threatened and arrested the griefing parents protesting against the death of their children
GAGk4 TIL in 2007 only 700 Florida snail kite birds remained because newly introduced invasive snails were too big to eat. From 2007 to 2017, these birds rapidly evolved 8-12% larger beaks because the smallest birds all starved to death. As of 2022 they have recovered to 3,000 individuals.