› added 7 years ago

96

TIL that right after the French finished building the Suez Canal, a British Commander snuck his ship to the head of the opening fleet at night so his would be the first one through. The Admiralty gave him an official reprimand, an unofficial vote of thanks, and a promotion.

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wLPbJ TIL beloved WWII correspondent Ernie Pyle was responsible for military troops receiving higher pay when in combat. Pyle felt that ground troops were at equal risk as airmen and that 'flight pay' should extend to 'fight pay'. It became the Ernie Pyle bill.
NQe1 TIL Vladimir Lenin spoke English with an Irish accent
loRrr TIL Shirley Temple's first acting job was in series of short film called Baby Burlesks, and in one of them she played an elite prostitute sent to influence a backwoods politician. She was 4-5 years old.
5VKrr TIL numerical contractions are words abbreviated by the number of letters between the first and last letter such as i18n, a11y, p13n, k8s, etc.
Z8vjY TIL Feral Pigs in Canada are burrowing and building ‘pigloos‘ to survive the winter