› added 12 years ago

132

TIL: This little blue berry is the shiniest living organism on Earth

OJ17 TIL that the ignition on all Porsches is located on the left side of the wheel. This is because back when Porsche was primarily a racing team, the drive could save a fraction of a second by starting the car with his left hand, while simultaneously switching the car into gear with his right hand.
nyab TIL The colored dots found on soda cans consist of all the colors used in the can design. If a can makes it through production and a dot is gone, then laborers will be able to trace the problem to a single machine applying that color, without shutting down all of the machines to resolve the problem
kJxE5 TIL that Mike Ilitch, the founder of Little Caesar’s, quietly paid for Rosa Parks’ rent after learning she had been robbed and assaulted in her home at the age of 81 in 1994. He helped her move to a safer neighborhood and continued to pay her rent until she died in 2005.
Qa5e TIL passenger pigeons were once the most abundant bird in the world. John James Audubon once saw a flock that took three days to pass. Alexander Wilson reckoned that a flock he saw contained 2,230,272,000 individuals. The bird was hunted to it’s extinction, which came on September 1, 1914.
yVbrJ TIL in 1900 William Schmidt, a gold miner, began hand-digging a half-mile tunnel in the Mojave Desert to transport ore for processing. After 20 years the ore could easily be transported on a new road, but Schmidt spent another two decades years finishing the tunnel, which was never used.