› added 13 years ago

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TIL that Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s tyrannical leader, has been appointed UN ambassador for tourism despite being accused of ethnic cleansing, vote rigging and being unable to leave Zimbabwe due to a travel ban.

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GAoVg TIL Hattori Hanzō is a title given to the leader of the Hattori Clan in addition to being the name of a famous samurai from the Sengoku period of Japan.
d86jE TIL of Khalid Sheldrake, a British Pickle Manufacturer who moved to Xinjiang and was declared King of Islamistan in 1934
R7R64 The first modern crematory was built in the U.S. in 1876. A second came eight years later. By 1900, there were 20. The practice got another boost in 1963 when the Catholic Church reversed its opinion on cremation during the Vatican II reforms and said cremation was permitted (though ash scattering was not). Four decades ago, less than 5 percent of American were cremated when they died. Now that figure stands at nearly half.
dDvmQ TIL that in 1885 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used 300,000 pounds of explosives to annihilate Flood Rock island in New York City's East River as part of clearing Hell Gate for safer navigation. It's been described as "the largest planned explosion before testing began for the atomic bomb".
XE4LX TIL Mel Gibson removed a scene from the film Hacksaw Ridge, in which Desmond Doss saved 75 Americans on a battlefield. The real Doss gave up his stretcher for another wounded man, was shot by a sniper, then crawled 300 yards to safety. Gibson felt the audience wouldn't find the scene believable.