› added 9 years ago

187

TIL there was an engine used in certain tanks and airplanes that was started using a shotgun shell.

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LQXGv TIL that the inspiration for Billy Elliot was an opera singer, Thomas Allen, not a dancer
nGvo TIL Tom Delonge of Blink-182 is a firm believer in extraterrestrial life and once had his phone tapped by the government for coming into possession of 36 hours of Congressional testimonial footage of NASA’s secret space program.
vR8j TIL that St Jude’s Hospital, which has treated thousands of children with cancer, is not religiously affiliated, and instead was founded by actor Danny Thomas because of a promise to the patron saint of lost causes after he found success in Hollywood
7r4DL TIL about Blackstone's ratio, the idea that, "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." Blackstone's principle influenced the nineteenth-century development of "beyond a reasonable doubt" as the burden of proof in criminal law.
6Eepl TIL of the World's Biggest Liar event, an annual competition for telling lies held in Cumbria, England. Competitors have five minutes to tell the most convincing lie they can, and politicians and lawyers are banned because "they are judged to be too skilled at telling porkies."