› added 2 years ago

249

TIL on July 9, 1962 , a nuclear bomb called "Starfish Prime" was successfully detonated in outer space as a part of the program ‘Operation Fishbowl" following two failures that resulted in radioactive material falling to earth from 35,000 feet.

Read more smithsonianmag.com

via reddit.com

kO9P4 TIL in 2018 the car loan platform Lending Tree reported that while Tesla buyers only spent 4.6% of income on car payments, the least among all studied brands, the highest payment-to-income ratio brands were Buick and Chrysler, with both having buyers spend 10.9% of their income on car payments.
6EQlQ TIL of The Barnum Effect: a common psychological phenomenon where people give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that seem tailored to them but are, in fact, vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. See astrology, fortune telling etc.
loOL7 TIL that Charles Dickens’ novels were hugely popular even among the illiterate poor. They would pool their money to hire a reader, and then gather together to listen to the stories.
loOr5 TIL people were skeptical of reinforced concrete until the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, where the few concrete buildings survived the quake and fire remarkably. Now we produce about 7.5 billion cubic meters of concrete worldwide every year.
AD1Wx TIL a 2015 study found that coffee also works as a sexual stimulant and decreases the likelihood of erectile dysfunction.