› added 11 years ago

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TIL that since the introduction of atomic time, leap seconds became necessary, resulting in a minute with 61 seconds.. There are approximately 8 leap seconds every decade.

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4kNYR TIL of Charles Upham who received the Victoria Cross twice in WWII. He is one of only 3 people to have received the award twice and the only combat soldier to ever have done so.
d8bWZ TIL that Red Cloud, a Chief of the Lakota, was the only American Indian in the West to win a war against the US, inflicted the largest military defeat suffered by the US on the Great Plains until the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and was the most photographed American Indian in the 19th century.
mxg1v TIL Roddy Piper improvised the "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass.... and I'm all out of bubblegum," line from They Live. John Carpenter told Roddy that he wasn't gonna rob the bank, but he was holding a shotgun and wearing sunglasses, so he needed to say something.
gMGK7 TIL the song Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover is not about a woman lusting after a man. Instead it's about a woman (the narrator) wishing she could save another woman who is trapped in an abusive relationship. The "I wish I was your lover" line is the narrator longing to show the woman what love can be.
M7JQ8 TIL that shortly after WW1 started, Pope Pius X "The Pontiff Supreme " and the Black Pope died within hours of each other. The Black Pope was Francis Xavier Wernz General of the Jesuits. The Black Pope got its name from robes that the Society of Jesus (aka Jesuits) members wear