› added 8 years ago

195

TIL when Eddie Van Halen recorded the guitar solo in Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” the speakers literally caught on fire

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aaB9 TIL that Alfred Wegener, the father of Continental Drift (which became plate tectonics) and a pioneer in paleoclimatology died lost in a blizzard on an expedition. His theories were ridiculed until decades later.
a6JM TIL that in NYC, you cannot sue the city for tripping on cracked sidewalks unless the city was previously aware of the cracks. As a result, lawyers pay people to map every single crack so they can sue the city more easily.
5VJAk TIL that to deter "train surfers", Indonesia installed concrete balls on chains above the train tracks after earlier trials of barbed wire, hosing down riders with red paint, and threatening them with dogs all failed
awRXo TIL that the Fairy Tales of Ludwig Bechstein were once more popular then the Brothers Grimm. In those tales women were self reliant instead of damsels in distress, and step-mothers were not treated as "wicked" since many German mothers died in childbirth and the role of stepmother was so important.
yQKDe TIL as a reaction to slipping behind in the space race, the United States Air Force developed a plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon. The main objective was to cause a nuclear explosion that would be visible from Earth, boosting the morale of the Amercian people.