› added 1 year ago

397

TIL about anti-apartheid activist Ruth First. A Jewish South African communist who was assassinated in 1982 by a parcel bomb built by South African police while exiled in Mozambique. She crossed paths with Nelson Mandela after he involvement in the founding of the Federation of Progressive Students

Read more jwa.org

via reddit.com

NAn8 TIL a Wikipedia hoaxster wrote that Amelia Bedelia was based on a maid from Cameroon, a claim so believable, it stayed on the site for 5 years and fooled the author’s nephew.
0v7j TIL Beethoven won a sight reading piano competition by turning his sheet music upside down, playing it, then improvising on one of its themes for thirty minutes. His opponent, Daniel Steibelt, never returned to challenge him again.
BrPQL TIL that modern tank guns are not rifled; they are smoothbore like a musket. Instead of firing shells, they fire an armor-piercing dart made of depleted uranium or tungsten, which is held in the center of the barrel by a discarding sabot.
Z9nR TIL that there is a snake venom that causes you to bleed from all holes of your body
XEQjD TIL cats prefer consuming human tissue during the relatively early stages of decomposition and will cease consumption when a corpse decays to the point of leaching bodily fluid.