› added 12 years ago

81

TIL that the Soviet Union designed a machine gun with such a recoil that it would damage the plane it was mounted on. Fuel tanks would rupture, parts would fall off, and electronic circuits would take damage. At least three crashes can be attributed to just using the gun.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

Rx64 TIL that in 1972 a scientist created a ‘Rat Utopia’ as a social experiment to study population density, and within two years the population dived Into a irreversible decline unto extinction.
ao50 TIL 150 Irish soldiers defended a Congo town from 3000 African mercs for six days, killed 300 of the mercs and didn’t lose any men themselves.
MeGo7 TIL that the stickers on fruit, and even the glue holding the stickers to the fruit, are edible/FDA friendly
8eb1K TIL that in France, unwed women over 25 were called “Catherinettes” and wore garish yellow and green hats for good luck in finding husbands on November 25
b9yka TIL Ryan Newman lead a campaign that may have just saved his own life. Newman crashed badly at the Daytona 500 back in 2003 prompting him to push for a reinforced bar across the windshield. In 2009 it became a regulation in NASCAR commonly referred to as the “Newman bar”.