› added 3 years ago

253

TIL J Robert Oppenheimer, inventor of the A-bomb, resigned as leader of Los Alamos. The program had shifted focus to thermonuclear weapons, and Oppenheimer vehemently opposed the hydrogen bomb and similar weapons on the grounds that they were more destructive than mankind could responsibly control.

Read more large.stanford.edu

via reddit.com

N47J TIL during the Rugby World Cup final a New Zealand player had his scrotum torn open level a testicle exposed in a tackle that also cost him 4 teeth. He had it replaced back and stitched up by the physio then returned to play only to be knocked out. He has no recollection of the game.
MeM80 TIL Norwegian police banned a team of Finnish divers from a cave in 2014 after 2 people died. In secret, the divers pulled their 2 dead friends to the surface & fulfilled a promise to a widow of one man. The illegal rescue took 27 divers & 101 hrs in frigid water, using about 1-ton of equip.
pbn8 TIL Guatemalans were deliberately infected with STDs between 1945 & 1956 through US government programme. They were kept secret until discovered in 2010 by a college prof. The programme published no findings, did not inform those who were infected nor did it provide them with follow up medical care.
pLAQ TIL: In New Orleans, for a few hundred dollars, you and your friends can rent a brass brand and have your very own police escorted personal parade.
Zj4R TIL that from 7 September 1978 to 9 May 1989 skateboards were illegal in Norway. For 11 years Norway was the only country in the world where it was forbidden to buy, sell or stand on a skateboard.