› added 7 years ago

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TIL that after inviting John Ratcliffe (villain figure in Pocahontas) for a friendly gathering, the Powhatan Indians instead tied him to a stake, removed pieces of skin from his entire body with mussel shells and tossed them into the fire as he watched.

kJA9d TIL of Fyllingsdalstunnelen, a 1.8 mile long bicycle tunnel built under a mountain in Bergen, Norway. It is the world's longest purpose-built tunnel for cyclists and pedestrians
xV160 TIL When Elton John told his parents of his desire to become an entertainer, they tried to steer him towards a more conventional career, like banking. The flamboyant costumes he wore on stage early in his career were a way of ‘letting go’ after his restrictive childhood
R5pR7 TIL Takashi Yanase (Anpanman creator) was a soldier during the Japanese occupation of China in World War II and lost his brother in the Pacific Theater. After the war, he became a children's book author and anti-war activist with "Chirin no Suzu" being an allegory for WWII.
dxGB TIL: In WW2, the US government took Aleutian natives from their island homes to internment camps, similar to those they banished Japanese Americans to. About 25% did not survive.
764x TIL that when Koichi Tanaka of Japan won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2002, he became the first to only have a bachelor’s degree. Tanaka was so unknown that he was on the second-lowest job level at the obscure Shimadzu Corp. The embarrassed scientific-instrument maker immediately promoted Tanaka.