› added 11 years ago

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TIL David Kirwan, 24, jumped into a near-boiling hot spring at 200°F (93°C) in Yellowstone, after his dog escaped the truck and ran into the Celestine Pool and began yelping. Several people tried to stop him by yelling warnings, but he replied “Like hell I won’t!” and then entered. Both perished.

woyOJ TIL about William Adams, an English navigator who, in 1600, became the first Englishman to reach Japan. He also became one of the first known Western samurai and a key advisor to the shōgun, and one of the first Englishmen to travel to Thailand and Vietnam.
PYxbZ TIL A 170-person Swiss infantry unit once got lost during training exercises and inadvertently crossed 1.5km into Liechtenstein. The Swiss army later informed Liechtenstein of the incursion and offered official apologies, to which a ministry spokesperson responded, "No problem, these things happen."
9YDPM TIL that David Tennant was so popular as the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who that the BBC considered cancelling the show upon his exit rather than casting a new Doctor, as they thought the show would fail without him.
9Yr1m TIL about neutral Moresnet, an formerly independent village-nation between Germany and Belgium that continued to exist until 1920. At it's height, it housed 3500 citizens and the largest zinc-mine of Europe. The flag colors came from a mining company and it's citizens were considered stateless
PY0Jg TIL DNA testing showed Subway Sandwiches' chicken was only 50% meat, the rest was soy. The testing was done at a University forensic lab. Subway vehemently denied the data.