› added 7 years ago

130

TIL: The average infantryman in the South Pacific during World War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years (10 days in one year). The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the helicopter.

Read more uswings.com

via ift.tt

rB6w TIL a lobsters brain is located in its throat, its nervous system in its abdomen, its teeth in its stomach and its kidneys in its head. It also hears using its legs, tastes with its feet, and tends to favor one front limb, meaning they can be right-clawed or left-clawed.
ZpZdR TIL that defunct airline Pan Am accepted reservation requests from 93,000 people for commercial spaceflights to the moon, which were expected to start departing in the year 2000.
BrVKe TIL that in Star Trek, Captain Kirk's phrase "You have the conn" has its origins in early battleships dating as far back as the 1860s; these ships were built with conning towers. A conning tower is a raised platform on a ship or submarine from which an officer in charge can issue commands.
dD4XE TIL that during WW2, the Obo Monuvo tribe of the Philippines fought the Japanese by serving them "Kallot", a poisonous yam that requires a special procedure for eating. The Japanese have no idea about the poison, and they were hacked to death by the tribes after they stopped moving from the poison.
Z8V9a TIL a Giant Pacific octopus named Billye learnt to open childproof pill bottles. She could execute the push-and-turn trick - without any instruction - in an average time of five minutes.