› added 1 year ago

68

TIL about William Rankin, a pilot who in 1959 parachuted into and survived passing through a cumulonimbus thunderstorm cloud while it was fully developed, an experience so traumatic that he dubbed it "being in a huge, uncontrollable laundry machine."

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

DQ0QY TIL In 2005, former Mexican President Vicente Fox said that Mexicans do jobs "that not even blacks want to do."
v1Qr7 TIL that after Italian football club Lazio won the Italian Super Cup in Saudi Arabia, they were stopped at the Riyadh airport, and the captain was forced to take the trophy with him through the metal detector
jNpVn TIL a California man got 'NULL' as a personalized license plate hoping that 'NULL' would confuse the computer system. Instead, when cops left the plate number info empty on a ticket or citation, the fine went to him. He got over $12k fines sent to him his first year.
4XYg5 TIL The world is running out of usable sand
p8ePZ TIL that the flags planted on the moon (Apollo 11) were purchased by a NASA secretary who went to Sears and bought off-the-shelf nylon flags for $5.50 USD (1969). These flags are still “flying” and held aloft by their poles.