› added 1 year ago

347

TIL That early model M-16s were so prone to jams and malfunctions, mostly due to the failure to ship them with cleaning kits and ammunition which fouled the operating mechanism, that the US military produced a comic book detailing proper field stripping instructions for the weapon.

Read more military.com

via reddit.com

X0nAR TIL Johnny Cash was the first American to hear of Joseph Stalin’s death via Morse code when he was stationed in Germany
R7909 TIL Lawn darts are also banned in the USA in 1988 as they sent 6,000 people (81% were 15 or younger) to the ER in eight years. In Canada, lawn darts resulted in at least 55 serious injuries, so they were banned for sale in July 1989. The sale of second-hand lawn darts is also illegal.
9YA9p TIL of Hannah Senesh, a Jewish paratrooper and poet during the Holocaust. She was captured, tortured, and eventually executed, but never gave up her comrades. "I could have been twenty-three next July; I gambled on what mattered most, the dice were cast. I lost."
XEGBX TIL there were two unrelated Exorcist prequels released by Warner Bros in the mid-2000's. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist was directed by Paul Schrader and released in 2005, but WB re-tooled it into a more marketable film, Exorcist: The Beginning, in 2004. Both were critical and financial flops.
0wXjR TIL In 2007, Keira Knightley was awarded £3,000 ($6,000) in damages from a lawsuit against Daily Mail for publishing an article about her having anorexia nervosa and added another £3,000 to this amount to donate to Beat, a charity for those who suffer mental illness and eating disorders.