› added 9 years ago

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TIL that the founder of the modern frozen food industry, Clarence Birdseye, was inspired when ice fishing in Labrador, Canada, in -40°C weather. He discovered that the fish he caught froze almost instantly and tasted fresh afterwards unlike the slowly frozen seafood sold in New York.

PYgjn TIL that during a Communist Party conference in 1937, following a speech by Stalin, the audience began to clap and carried on for 11 minutes, with no-one daring to be the first to stop. The first person to stop was a paper factory director who was arrested that night and sent to prison for 10 years.
RoZ7 TIL the number of syllables per line in the lyrics of “Lateralus” by Tool correspond to an arrangement of the Fibonacci numbers.
Yp5Nr TIL researchers successfully killed MRSA (the antibiotic resistant superbug) with a blue laser and peroxide. They found a blue light can "bleach" the protective layer of the MRSA membrane which then makes it more vulnerable. This weakened it enough for hydrogen peroxide to finish the job.
nerx7 TIL that Jonathan James was only 15 when he hacked into the systems of NASA and the United States Department of Defense in June 1999 . Since he was a juvenile, he was charged with 2 counts of “juvenile delinquency” placed under a 6 month home arrest and asked to write apology letters to NASA and DOD
5gXr TIL the guy who invented E-gold (90’s bitcoin) was indicted on federal charges of money laundering, conspiracy and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.