› added 11 years ago

105

TIL that ExonMobil, Cheveron, and, BP were once part of Standard Oil, founded by John D. Rockefeller, before it was broken up by the US Supreme Court in 1911.

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a8wV9 TIL of "Antiaris toxicaria", also known as the "Upas", a tree whose latex is so toxic it is used to poison the tips of blowdarts and arrows in Southeast Asian cultures. It has sometimes been regarded as the most poisonous tree in the world.
Q1EL TIL Harrison Ford and Sean Connery filmed their conversation scenes onboard the Zeppelin in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade without pants on, because of the hot set.
YpmwP TIL Motorola was the first company to produce a handheld mobile phone. The first call was from Martin Cooper (Motorola) to his rival Joel Engel (Bell Labs). The phone weighed 1.1kg, had talk time of 30 minutes and took 10 hours to recharge.
gM0ay TIL that NASA has four M113 that astronauts learn to drive in case they need to escape from the launchpad. These M113 are also used by the NASA firefighters' squad.
4pMX TIL a rock shot from a lawn mower can have the same force as a bullet from a .357 magnum