› added 11 years ago

319

TIL The idiom, “whatever can go wrong will go wrong”, better known as Murphy’s law, was named after an actual person. Captain Edward A. Murphy, an engineer for the U.S Army. This saying was coined after his repeated problems with his G force experiment.

Read more people.howstuffworks.com

via reddit.com

WkyeB TIL that bacon has enough energy to melt metal
gMWW9 TIL of "Jerome of Sandy Cove" an unknown man who washed up on the shore of Nova Scotia September 8 1863. Both his legs were amputated above the knees and he couldn't (or refused to) understand French, Latin, Italian, or Spanish. He died 49 years later and no one ever figured out where he came from.
mx4aR TIL the Great Dismal Swamp (at the border of North Carolina and Virginia) held the largest "Maroon" colony (escaped slaves and their descendants) in the United States. Most managed to stay hidden despite militia invasions that aimed to capture them, and only left the swamp after the civil war.
D1b1r TIL 2 brothers were filming a documentary about a probationary New York Fire Fighter in 2001. They went on a routine call to check for a gas leak on 9/11 and ended up being the only camera to film the first crash. They followed the FDNY into the Twin Towers and survived.
R7My8 TIL toilet paper only became "splinter-free" in the 1930s.