› added 11 years ago

218

TIL in 2001 Smith & Wesson lost 40% of their business due to a boycott by the NRA for entering into an agreement with the federal government to put locks on its handguns, and researching and implementing “smart-gun” technology that would only allow the owner to operate it.

Read more businessinsider.com

via reddit.com

0dM5R TIL that during World War II, Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat posted as an acting consul in Lithuania, disobeyed his government's instructions and issued visas for Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.
b6vxj TIL of the Cross Border Xpress at Tiajuana International Airport, a 390 foot bridge over the US-Mexico border where passengers can park on the American side, clear customs, cross the bridge, and board a plane that departs on the Mexican side all without ever leaving the same airport.
G9l5 TIL The United States put hundreds of thousands of Filipinos in concentration camps, which resulted in the deaths of over 275,000 natives.
OoYyX TIL of Dr. William Moon—a one-eyed man who developed his own reading system for the blind in the 1840s after finding other methods unreliable. He called his method “Moon Code” and based it off of simplified Roman letters, which allowed almost anyone to learn it extremely quickly.
kOMVB TIL IBM donated an International Translator System for use at the Nuremberg Trials, which brought the trial to life through simultaneous interpretation of English, Russian, French, and German delivered to 600 headsets with five audio channels. Later, IBM sold the proven system to the United Nations.