› added 9 years ago

362

TIL that The Day After, a 1983 made- for- TV movie about nuclear war and it’s horrific effects, was watched by about 100 million people when it aired. President Reagan was left deeply depressed after viewing it, the film is now seen as having pushed him to start advocating nuclear disarmament

Read more medium.com

via reddit.com

0wrpp TIL of Othmar Ammann, a Swiss-American engineer. He was the lead engineer of more than half of NYC crossings including the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln Tunnel. His designs were inexpensive and elegant allowing the projects to be completed on time and under budget
6Pwl TIL that MI6 British intelligence hacked into an al-Qaeda online magazine and replaced bomb-making instructions with a recipe for cupcakes.
4mKN TIL that at the beginning of the song Roxane by The Police, during the intro, you can hear a strange piano chord, then Sting laughing. In fact, during the voice recording, Sting accidently sat on the piano just behind him. They decided to keep this on the final mix.
Knkw TIL that according to Navajo culture the weaver of a rug would deliberately put an imperfection, called a “ch’ihónít’i” (“spirit line”), believed to allow the release of the weaver’s spirit from the woven item, and also symbolizes the perfection-in-imperfection
yGDV TIL the American Association for cancer research conducted a study using capsaicin, the antioxidant that makes peppers spicy. It was determined that cancer tumors were decreased to one-fifth their size, on average.