› added 10 years ago

156

TIL the police department of Tenaha, Texas, routinely pulls over drivers from out-of-town and exercises civil asset forfeiture regardless of guilt or innocence, under the threat of felony charges and turning children over to foster services.

Read more newyorker.com

via reddit.com

YbAW TIL Millennium Challenge was a major war game exercise conducted by the US military in 2002. The combatants were the US, referred to as “Blue”, and an unknown adversary know as “Red”. After Red’s commander defeated Blue Team using asymmetric warfare, the game was reset and rigged so Blue would win.
GApRg TIL that in its 30 years of operation from 1967 to 1997, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation only developed one new, from the ground up aircraft. It was the C-17 Globemaster III.
4eXR TIL that Dana Snyder’s audition for “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” was literally an angry, abusive and drunk rambling message left on the voice mail of Dave Willis, the show’s producer and writer. Snyder eventually became the voice for “Master Shake”.
0wBWN TIL "Scientists estimate that there are at least six billion planets that are similar to our Earth, present within our Milky Way galaxy alone. Some estimate that there are more than 10 billion."
X05Z6 TIL in 1954, father of the hydrogen bomb Edward Teller presented Sundial, a conceptual hydrogen bomb with a yield of 10 gigatons. Under the right conditions, this would start fires as far as 250 miles, an area the size of France. Work continued for several years after, with a test planned for 1956.