› added 9 years ago

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TIL that the EPA used to chase commercial jets down the runway with a heavily modified Plymouth originally meant for NASCAR competition. The car stayed in the jet wash the entire time. At $25,000, they determined this to be the cheapest way of collecting emissions data for airliners

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4k085 TIL, immediately after WWII, the U.S Government took 1,600 Nazi scientists back to the U.S. This secret operation was called “Operation Paperclip”. Many of these ex-Nazis scientists went to work for NASA. The most famous ex-Nazi scientist was Wernher von Braun.
VMPG8 TIL that there were flying cars in 1947. Convair built the Model 118, or ConvAirCar, and flew it several times. It was a normal car that had a detachable wing and propellor assembly that allowed it to fly.
Oor66 TIL that the difference between a graveyard and a cemetery is that a cemetery is not attached to a church.
yQdZe TIL that you couldn't take a calculus classes when Harvard started because calculus hadn't been formally discovered yet.
yyyl TIL that, in Russian Roulette, a properly lubricated and maintained revolver has a higher chance of not firing the bullet, because gravity pulls the loaded chamber down, if it is allowed to stop on its own.