› added 8 years ago

102

TIL a US Army Lieutenant in WW2 sacrificed his life by calling an artillery strike – on himself. Knowing an incoming German advance was a huge threat, he volunteered to remain behind, directing the fire until the enemy reached him. His body was found next to approx. 100 dead German troops.

Read more lateet.com

via reddit.com

dxP8 TIL that Egyptian Pharaohs were at one time required to masturbate ceremonially into the Nile River.
jvaa TIL Mary Anning, the first female paleontologist, is the girl referenced in the rhyme “she sells sea shells by the sea shore” after she discovered the first ichthyosaur at age 12 while collecting shells on the beach.
0mdj TIL David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) owns the Fender Stratocaster with the #0001 serial number.
v1aZr TIL that the origin of “Spilling the Beans” probably dates back to the ancient Greek method of placing black or white beans in a jar to cast votes. If someone spilled the jar of beans, the election results would be known prematurely.
Or1 TIL that the more than 100,000 people working on the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge Tennessee in the 1940s had no idea what they were working on. It wasn’t until the local newspaper printed the bombing of Hiroshima were the workers told what they had been working on for the last several years.