› added 2 months ago

10

TIL J.R.R. Tolkien was a supporter of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco

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via reddit.com

AE8o TIL in 1957 a US Air Force pilot caught in bad weather discovered his prototype jet fighter had no cockpit lighting. He managed to navigate and land the aircraft by periodically flicking a Zippo cigarette lighter and using the flame to read the instruments.
kJV5d TIL, Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States, was the first U.S. President to be born in a hospital? Jimmy Carter is also the 4th oldest living former head of state and the 26th oldest of all time—an impressive feat considering all those ahead of him reached 100.
R5MlQ TIL that only about 4% of the Earth's surface has two points on opposite sides of the world that are both on land
ojL8 TIL that in 1971, on the day before Bangladesh officially won its Liberation War, Pakistani soldiers kidnapped the brightest Bengali intellectuals–writers, philosophers, historians, mathematicians, physicists, poets–and slaughtered them in the middle of the night.
8DoX TIL there was a game called Perplex City which involved clues on playing card to find a cube with a prize of 100000 pounds. One of the clues was called “Billion to One” which featured a man and Japanese text that translates to “Find me”. He is still missing to this day.