› added 5 years ago

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TIL The first edition of “Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory” Oompa Loompas were African Pygmies.

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5VY8P TIL the word "hurricane" itself comes from the Taino Indigenous Caribbean word hurakán, meaning evil spirits of the wind.
awgML TIL Astronaut Gus Grissom was accused of prematurely blowing the hatch on the Liberty 7 space capsule, causing it to sink. He maintained the hatch blew on its own without his intervention. He later died in the Apollo 1 capsule fire because of a complicated hatch that would not blow quickly enough.
e0oRE TIL it's impossible to see your own eyes moving in a mirror due to a phenomenon called saccadic masking where the brain selectively blocks visual processing during rapid eye movements
7r8nO TIL that the Texas City Refinery explosion was the result of a hydrocarbon vapor cloud being ignited by a runaway diesel engine. The vapor served as excess fuel (sucked through the air intake) creating a positive feedback loop. As the engine overheated, it backfired igniting the surrounding cloud.
WkGjo TIL that Stephen Ambrose (Band of Brothers) probably lied about interviewing Dwight Eisenhower for the books that first made Ambrose’s name