› added 4 years ago

248

TIL That the Scaly Foot Gastropod lives in hydrothermal vents up to 750°F, doesn't eat food, and is the only living creature that encorporates iron into its skeleton.

ZpkNB TIL that many WW2 aircraft used a radio system so secret that it was supplied with a self-destruct button to prevent it falling into enemy hands. It was so badly designed that pilots and radio operators often blew up their equipment when trying to turn it on.
nWDyG TIL about Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang, who was murdered in the street by members of a government death squad because she had criticized human rights abuses in the country.
neyOG TIL Sana Amanat, born into a Pakistani family, co-created Marvel's first solo series to feature a Muslim female superhero, Ms. Marvel. Growing up, she often saw women who were blonde and white idolized in society while Muslims were often demonized and she wished to become a pretty white girl
VPdp TIL of Han van Meegeren, a painter who avoided execution in 1945 for selling Dutch cultural property to the Nazis by proving he’d forged it all after setting up his studio in court. He received just one year for fraud and was later hailed as a hero for duping Hermann Göring, amongst others.
OGXpR TIL that in 1783, the Laki volcano in Iceland erupted for 8 months. It caused a famine that killed 1/3rd of all Icelanders and changed global temperatures. The 1784 winter saw ice flows in the Gulf of Mexico and a frozen Mississippi river as far as New Orleans