› added 8 years ago

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TIL: USAF Project Thor (aka “Rods from God”) consisted of dropping telephone pole sized tungsten rods from space. This would provide global strike faster than an ICBM, be nearly impossible to defend against, and would hit the earth at Mach 10 causing the devastation of a tactical nuclear warhead.

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OGbZg TIL about "bear raids" in finance, which is a term used to describe a situation where an investor, group, or entity attempts to influence the price of stocks downward in order to either profit from a short position or acquire a new long position at a lower price.
YpPrG TIL that modern genetics was discovered/invented in 1856-63 by an Austrian monk who overturned millennia of misunderstanding by simply running a scientific experiment (on 28,000 plants); yet his work was ignored for 40 years and nearly lost.
06MR TIL that magpie attacks in Australia have led cyclists to put spikes on their helmets.
LkE8V TIL former NBA player, Chris Webber, has an extensive collection of African American artifacts he began collecting his rookie year. It grew so large that it is housed in the Sacramento Public Library’s Archive Vault. It includes signed docs and letters from Malcolm X, MLK, and Frederick Douglass.
BryOe TIL George Washington died from cynanche trachealis, aka the croup, mainly due to over zealous Doctors. Washington feeling very sick asked his overseer, Albin Rawlins, to bleed him. Doctors bled him four more times over the next eight hours, with a total blood loss of 40% along with other remedies.