› added 3 years ago

322

TIL that 50 yrs ago today, the US conducted its largest underground nuclear test. A W71 warhead was detonated in a 7-ft-wide, 5,873-ft-deep shaft beneath Amchitka Island, Alaska. The yield was about 5 Megatons. The explosion raised the ground 25 ft, later collapsing into a 1-mile-wide, 60-ft crater.

Read more nuclearprinceton.princeton.edu

via reddit.com

Vjlk TIL a 15 year old Roman Emperor named Heliogabalus, was a notorious prankster. He would get his party guests black out drunk and then dump them into a bedroom full of toothless leopards, lions and bears. He also created the 1st known ‘whoopee cushions’ using inflated animal bladders.
e0QPb TIL Swiss neutrality dictates that Switzerland is not to be involved in armed or political conflicts between other states.
QWK9 TIL in WWII a woman-only Soviet bomber regiment were nicknamed the “Night Witches” by German soldiers. For a successful bombing run, the Witches would cut the engine of their archaic and noisy aircraft. Gliding in, they would release their bombs before the enemy even knew they were there.
BrEGk TIL Hitler's definition of "socialism" (as in, National Socialism) was explicitly anti-Marxist and Hitler claimed Marxists had "stolen" the term from ancient Germans.
byXE TIL that because of the urban myth in the ‘60s and '70s that trick-or-treaters were given candy apples with razor blades in them, hospitals offered free x-rays for any candy apple given to children during the Halloween season.