› added 6 years ago

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TIL poachers are now hacking into tags that conservationists put on endangered animals to track them.

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0wXGp TIL electricity was first installed in the White House in 1891. It was such a new concept that President Benjamin Harrison and his wife both refused to touch light switches due to their fear of electrocution so the White House staff had to follow them around and turn the lights off and on for them
M7oDm TIL that in 1938, a wallet manufacturer ran advertisements demonstrating that a Social Security card could fit into its wallets. In these ads, it used a sample card featuring the real Social Security Number of the company's secretary
1aPeX TIL about PanAm 6039, a commercial "flying boat" that went the long way from San Francisco to New York, nearly circumnavigating the globe, in order to get home following the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941
BgKK TIL will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas fame started a car company, and tried to pass off a modified Delorean as his own original concept car. The car was later impounded by police when they caught him driving it illegally on public roads.
mxdEp TIL since Japanese honeybees don't have big enough stingers to pierce giant hornet exoskeletons, they instead attack by swarming them in "hot bee balls" and cooking them to death. The friction of the buzzing bees can reach 117° F / 47° C at the core of the bee ball.