› added 8 years ago

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TIL of Louis Slotin, Manhattan Project physicist who died horribly after his screwdriver slipped and accidentally caused a runaway nuclear reaction.

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4Xd7R TIL about the "Grievance Studies affair" where three academics produced bogus papers to expose how lax academic journals had become. One paper that was accepted and published by the Journal Affilia included long excerpts from Hitlers Mein Kampf where the word "Jew" was replaced with "White Man".
d8DY8 TIL of Ba'al Pe'or- An idol mentioned in Talmudic texts, in which to worship it, you defecated on it.
Y7GpZ TIL about Helios Flight 522. An engineer failed to set the pressurization system back to auto from manual, causing most (except 2 flight attendants) to lose consciousness. The auto-pilot reached Greece and stayed in a holding pattern until they ran out of fuel and crashed, killing all 121 onboard.
ZAAB TIL music sounds better when heard with the left ear, while the right ear is more efficient at deciphering speech.
dDAXZ TIL instead of Valentine's Day, Romanians celebrate "Dragobete" on February 24th. It's a celebration of spring and love, on the day when birds (supposedly) start nests.