› added 5 years ago

70

TIL a 1970s East German currency shortage lead to the modern Vietnamese coffee industry

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

aOeZ TIL the Shakers, a religious sect that once numbered over six thousand, died off because one of their central tenants is celibacy.
neGxd TIL that the Forensic seismology machine that they use to detect nuclear bombs going off in Florida is Falsely alerts that a nuclear bomb went off somewhere in the world every Sunday because the Garbage man comes by the facility and slams the lid of the dumpster too hard, setting off the Detector.
jgQa TIL TV Show “Seinfeld” made US$2.7 billion on reruns through June 2010 since it went off the air in 1998.
j6oyj TIL Hydrogen-alpha solar telescopes work thanks to an optical device called an etalon, made up of two semi-reflective, optically flat plates. The flatness of the plates and how parallel they are defines the quality of the view of the Sun, which has an ‘orange peel’ appearance through the telescope
rRW0w TIL that Abraham Lincoln was challenged to a duel in 1842. As the challenged party, he would have the right to select the weapons used. He accepted the challenge and chose broadswords "of the largest size" in order to take advantage of his superior reach.