› added 13 years ago

269

TIL during WWII, 12000 conscientious objectors served the government without pay. Their many jobs included smokejumping into forest fires, being human test subjects, and working at mental hospitals, where their pacifist approach revolutionized the way mental patients were treated.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

50Zn TIL that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were “deists” who believe in a God that created the universe and scientific laws but then is completely indifferent to it. One that doesn’t meddle in the affairs of humans, making miracles or praying false and unnecessary.
jN6WR TIL A researcher once played a recording of an elephant who had died. The sound was coming from a speaker hidden in a thicket. The family went wild calling, looking all around. The dead elephant’s daughter called for days afterward. The researchers never again did such a thing.
oRnoE TIL The 2005 film ‘Hostel’ damaged Slovakia’s representation and tourism economy so badly that director Eli Roth was invited to an all expenses paid trip to clear false allegations the film made about the country, such as it being a ‘crime riddled, corrupt, lawless, poor and dangerous’ place.
v15n8 TIL surgeons at a Dental College in India removed a "well-defined bag-like mass" from the jaw of a 7-year-old boy. It weighed 7 ounces and contained 526 teeth. It took a medical team five hours to meticulously search through and count all of them.
yy9e TIL that baseball hand signals, such as safe and out, were invented by a 19th century deaf player named Dummy Hoy so he could comprehend what was going on in his games.