› added 9 years ago

82

TIL:in 1927, James Dole the “Pineapple King” sponsored the Dole Air Race, putting up a prize of $25,000 for the first airplane to fly from Oakland to Honolulu and $10,000 for second place. Those prizes were won by the only two airplanes to survive the flight. Ten other people died in their attempts.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

4QNw TIL that the saxophone was invented only in 1846 by Adolphe Sax. As a child, he survived a three-story fall, a gunpowder explosion, drinking a bowl of sulfuric water, a near-poisoning due to furniture varnish, and falling into a speeding river. His neighbors called him “little Sax, the ghost.”
gaAW TIL A world famous violinist played in a D.C. subway on a $3.5 million violin, just days after performing in Boston’s Symphony Hall. He played pieces only a handful of people in the world can play. After 43 minutes of playing he made $32.17 and some even threw pennies.
ajRA TIL British officers imprisoned in Colditz castle, an ‘escape-proof’ Nazi POW camp, tried to escape by tunneling out. They emerged instead in a German colonel’s wine cellar, where they proceeded to drink 137 bottles of wine, fill them with urine, and place them back on the shelves.
0wNvp TIL of Carl McCunn, a wildlife photographer who arranged to be flown out to remote Alaskan wilderness but forgot to schedule when he'd be picked up. He wrote of a plane spotting him stranded, in his excitement he accidentally gave the pilot an "All is well" signal, his diary was found with his body
4XX0a TIL: The Supreme Court found in Bounds v. Smith that if prisoners don't have access to a legal professional, they are required to have access to a legal library.