› added 3 months ago

117

TIL During the London Olympics, the Military placed anti-aircraft missiles on the tops of apartment buildings

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

oB0AE TIL: As of 2012 there is still an active witch hunting unit in Saudi Arabia. In 2009, 118 people were charged with witchcraft and by 2011 there were 9 bureaus in the country to combat sorcery. The US has been accused of having sorcerers.
9w0ZM TIL during the negotiations to end the Spanish-American War, Spain originally rejected the US demand for the whole of the Philippines and wanted to cede only Mindanao or the Sulu Islands. US negotiators responded by proposing to pay $20 million for the whole of the Philippines, which Spain accepted.
p8ag8 TIL while playing fetch with dogs, if you throw the ball into water, the dog will run along the beach a while before jumping in, a technique to minimize retrieval time since they're faster on land. You can use calculus to calculate the optimal jumping point, which the dogs can find instinctively.
9YxxG TIL an IT Director, fed up with sales calls where the caller lied to reach IT staff, said to transfer one such caller 'straight to hell' . This led to the creation of a special extension for such calls where horrible hold music and faked queue messages play on an endless loop to increase hold time.
mx9PP TIL: it’s so common and customary to have American style tacos on Fridays in Norway, they have a name for it: Fredagstacos