› added 7 years ago

134

TIL of Frank Nelson Cole. At a 1903 meeting of the American Mathematical Society, Cole—while remaining completely silent—showed on a chalkboard an important new proof by, among other things, calculating 193,707,721 × 761,838,257,287 by hand. He sat down after an hour to a standing ovation.

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4XjNa TIL that during WWII there was an event known as that 'Battle of Los Angeles'. Citizens and military thought the Japanese were attacking Los Angeles and fired AA guns into the sky. Turns out it was only a lost weather balloon.
4kApw TIL that Bud Light's big marketing push in the 80s was Spuds Mackenzie, a dog presented as "a cool dude". Spuds was played by a female dog, named Honey Tree Evil Eye.
7KW7 TIL that a double-blind study which was published in Nature showed that experienced astrologers are no better at determining people’s psychological traits based on the location of the stars during their birth than someone who is randomly guessing them.
Mob8 TIL the police department of Tenaha, Texas, routinely pulls over drivers from out-of-town and exercises civil asset forfeiture regardless of guilt or innocence, under the threat of felony charges and turning children over to foster services.
OgL4 TIL the Mona Lisa was painted with eyebrows and eyelashes, but they disappeared over time, possibly the result of over-cleaning.