› added 11 years ago

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TIL An Iranian fighter attempted to down a UFO. He instead immediately lost all communications, weapons, and instrumentation, which were purely mechanical.

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xxvb TIL that an unconfirmed nuclear blast in the Indian Ocean, called the Vela Incident, was detected in 1979 and never definitively explained
74Kp TIL that since 1617, breaches of etiquette at Oxford University have been punished by making the offender drink up to four pints of beer in one go.
nevW7 TIL exponential, log and trig functions are examples of transcendental functions, which "transcend" algebra as they can't be expressed with a sequence of the algebraic operations of addition, multiplication and root extraction. Unlike algebraic functions, they can't satisfy polynomial equations.
oBGQ7 TIL during the Vietnam war, the CIA created "ghost tapes" designed to frighten Vietcong solders. the tapes were of fallen Vietnamese souls wandering the jungle telling of their suffering, and to go back to their loved ones. These were played loudly at night from helicopters.
wL0LE Today i learned about Great Zimbabwe, largest settlement ruins in sub-saharan Arica which also tradet with Arab-Indian states. When european colonists saw it, they claimed it was too complex to be of african origins, and ordered historians to dispute the evidence of its african history.