› added 7 years ago

7623

TIL that all modern color printers print a secret, nearly invisible code onto every page to allow governments to track the serial number and timestamps

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yVKYM TIL that beginning in 1984, NASA administrator James M. Begg, who feared the number 13, stopped the sequential numbering of Space Shuttle flights in order to avoid that number. After STS9, the next shuttle flight was numbered 41-B using an arcane system based on the fiscal year.
XErRj TIL that when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 702 was hijacked and flown to Switzerland, the Swiss Air Force did not respond because the "incident occurred outside normal office hours."
jNbZQ TIL that the phrase “to blow smoke up your ass” was an actual medical practice used by indigenous North American people to stimulate respiration. It’s called a tobacco smoke enema.
XE0YQ TIL That the inventor of Tang, also invented Pop Rocks, Cool Whip, a form of instant-set Jell-O, and other convenience foods.
p8eeG TIL: Shanghai was one of the few places that didn't require an entry visa in the years before WWII, so thousands of Jews fleeing Germany went there. Because German authorities required a visa to leave, Ho Feng Shan, the consul-general in Austria, made "fake" visas, over his superior's objections.