› added 7 years ago

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TIL That in 2016 a woman was seriously burnt after 'fart' caused laser to burst into flames

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via reddit.com

OGLJ7 TIL that Konrad Schumann, the subject of the famous photo of a soldier escaping communist East Berlin to the capitalist West, went to visit his family in former East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They rejected him, considering him a traitor, and he committed suicide several years later.
QJWmd TIL 100 years ago Rupert Murdoch's father, a journalist, conspired with anti-Semitic war historian Charles Bean, to convince the Prime Minister of Australia to de-mote Australian General and commander of the Western front John Monash, a man stongly admired by his troops and of Jewish heritage.
b96B0 TIL there's a lesser known third Opium War fought in 1967 on Laos
Yp01r TIL That of the 124 actors hired to play the Munchkins in “The Wizard of Oz”, only one is alive today
6oBY TIL that the British Royal Navy (at substantial cost) established a fleet of ships known as the ‘West Africa Squadron’ which would patrol the west coast of Africa, capturing slave ships. This fleet is estimated to have captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 African slaves between 1808 & 1860.