› added 9 years ago

167

TIL Winston Churchill, along with many of the Royal Navy’s highest ranking men, came very close to death after the ship they were on was fired at by a U-boat with 3 torpedoes. All three struck the hull of the ship, but all failed to explode.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

1aOlV TIL young Abraham Lincoln considered joining the Donner Party to California. The group is notorious for mass cannibalism after becoming trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for 5 months during the winter. He eventually declined due to a budding political career, a toddler and pregnant wife.
dPE7 TIL that up to 10% of chickens have a newly-discovered muscle disorder called “woody breast,” which causes their breast meat to be unusually hard and rubbery.
4XMQa TIL of a 100yr old+ Winchester Model 1873 was found abandoned against a tree with the bottom of its stock buried in 4-5 inches of accumulated soil and vegetation, in Great Basin National Park, Nevada, saving it from an eventual wildfire which destroyed said tree. Its called the Forgotten Winchester
jZmv TIL: The 1938 labor law giving protections to working children excludes agriculture. As a result approximately 500,000 children pick ¼ of the food produced in the U.S.
W7o7L TIL If Coca-Cola's inventor had decided to file a patent application in 1892 instead of keeping the recipe a secret, patent protection would have expired long before Pepsi ever came onto the market in 1965. Patent protection lasts 20 years at most. Trade secrets can last forever.