› added 11 years ago

180

TIL that in 1945, 900 Japanese soldiers were forced to retreat through 10 miles of mangrove swamp, during which hundreds were to be eaten by the thousands of saltwater crocodiles lying wait, in what is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the “Worst crocodile disaster in the world”.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

DQpgJ TIL that the word Blockbuster comes from an actual bomb used during WWII.
QN9ga TIL a gamergate is a mated worker ant that can reproduce sexually by laying fertilized eggs that will develop as females. There are 100–200 different species in which gamergates reproduce (roughly 1% of all ants) and in some species the queen caste has been completely replaced by gamergates
GYNRN TIL That K2 is only 237 meters(777ft) shorter then Mt. Everest and is considered far more challenging to ascend, about one person dies on the mountain for every four who reach the summit.
AN6Ed TIL that in 2004, USS Nimitz pilots encountered a "Tic Tac" UFO displaying impossible flight maneuvers like rapid acceleration and hovering with no visible propulsion. Multiple military eyewitnesses and radar data confirmed the sighting making it one of the most credible UFO encounters.
kOMVB TIL IBM donated an International Translator System for use at the Nuremberg Trials, which brought the trial to life through simultaneous interpretation of English, Russian, French, and German delivered to 600 headsets with five audio channels. Later, IBM sold the proven system to the United Nations.