› added 9 years ago

95

TIL of the Caterpillar Club, which is exclusive to those who have been forced to bail from an aircraft and survived thanks to a parachute.

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awZXA TIL of the extinct sport of Barrel Jumping existed with a record jump of 18 barrels (nearly 30’!)
p8g1e TIL in 1998, a minister who was using a .357-caliber Magnum to compare sin to Russian roulette died five days after shooting himself in the head with a blank round and shattering his skull in front of several hundred parishioners, including his family.
d8VYd TIL alcohol breath is not from the stomach, rather it's from the ethanol diffusing out of the blood in the lungs. Eating food, chewing gum, or vomiting won't help mask how much alcohol is in your system if you're breathalyzed
QJEYp TIL the phrase “No Spring Chicken”, originated in the early 1700’s, farmers found that chickens born in the spring brought better prices than ‘old’ ones that had gone through winter. When farmers tried to sell the old birds as 'new spring born’, buyers complained that they were 'no spring chicken’.
dDwBQ TIL about the 1886 short story “How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic by a Survivor”, which served as a cautionary tale about the dangers of ships having too few lifeboats. Its author, William Thomas Stead, later died during the Titanic sinking in 1912.