› added 10 months ago

47

TIL elephants call and respond to each other by name

Read more e360.yale.edu

via reddit.com

Ob6g TIL that Dale Dye, a Vietnam vet, was so “pissed off” at Hollywood’s depiction of war that he offered his services as an advisor and now runs “the entertainment industry’s top military consultancy company”. He’s worked on Platoon, The Pacific and, for some reason, Entourage.
GA797 TIL American eugenicists used state fairs to host Fitter Families Contests which judged "human stock" to select the most eugenically fit family.
XENar TIL of Project Azorian, a secret CIA project in the 1970s fronted by eccentric businessman Howard Hughes. The CIA spent the equivalent of $4 billion to make a ship that could recover a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine. It nearly succeeded, but 2/3rds of the vessel broke away during retrieval.
OOlY TIL that the graffiti artist that painted Facebook’s first office in 2005 was paid in shares, and is now worth over $200 million.
BrY1y TIL about Nábrók, or "necropants." According to Icelandic witchcraft, these are pants made of human skin that produce an endless supply of money.