› added 5 years ago

117

TIL of Harry Daghlian, a 24 year-old physicist with the Manhattan Project. He accidentally dropped a brick into the centre of a plutonium core and exposed himself to a lethal dose of radiation, dying 25 days after the accident.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

JY5mk TIL in the days following the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Ronald Reagan called the killing "a great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order and people started choosing which laws they'd break."
VM5Wk TIL about Boston Brahmins - upper class English colonists who saw themselves as the social equivalent of Brahmins in the Indian caste system
OopGX TIL that the Ghostbusters no-ghost sign is flipped in Europe vs other parts of the world, because the "no" sign is in different directions in different parts of the world
GYdK4 TIL that legendary Hollywood director Martin Scorsese, best known for his violent gangster films, has used the same female editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, on every movie he's made since Raging Bull in 1980.
awVX9 TIL that amethyst was considered one of the five most precious gemstones, alongside diamond, ruby, sapphire, and emerald. When large deposits were found in Brazil, the value of amethyst plummeted, and today it is considered only semiprecious.