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TIL Harry Pidgeon, the second person to circumnavigate the globe in a sailboat solo, had virtually no sailing experience and built his boat on an LA beach following instructions from a magazine. The press jokingly called him "The Library Navigator"

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rRoZW TIL The Well Yes But Actually No meme comes from a misquoted line from the movie So You Want to Be a Pirate. The actual line said in the scene pictured by the meme is "good guess, but actually no" which is often heard as "well yes, but actually no" due to pronunciation.
AD8Yw TIL the Winter Arctic Games are held biennially, featuring athletes from nine teams: Alaska (USA), Northern Alberta, Northwest Territories, Nunavik - Quebec, Nunavut, Yukon (all Canada), Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (Russia), Sami people (Arctic Nordic countries, Kola Peninsula), and Greenland
84aL TIL Douglas Bader was a legless flying ace (RAF) in WW2 . His success was partly because of his having no legs; pilots pulling high “g-forces” in combat often “blacked out” as the flow of blood from the brain to other body parts, usually the legs. As he had no legs he could remain conscious longer.
Merl0 TIL that in 1998, the City of Des Moines, Iowa rejected a pedestrian bridge design for being "too modern." The design was based on plans made by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1504.
OGLQY TIL Abracadabra is of unknown origin, the first known mention of the word was in the second century AD by a physician to the Roman emperor who prescribed that malaria sufferers should wear an amulet containing Abracadabra written in the form of a triangle.