› added 9 years ago

10537

TIL that poor neighborhoods in 60’s-era Washington DC suffered massive rat infestations until Julius Hobson began catching the “possum-sized” rats in a cage, strapping it to the roof of his car, driving them to the rich neighborhoods, and threatening to release them.

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m1VjO TIL: Tesla did not invent the Tesla Coil, he just named it after himself and patented it
yQXLv TIL The total energy released through an average hurricane is equivalent to 200 times the electrical generating capacity of the entire world.
w9gJ TIL no recordings existed of Alexander Graham Bell’s voice until a wax on cardboard disc was discovered in 2013. In it we hear Bell say in a Scottish-tinged accent “Hear my voice… . Alexander. . Graham. . Bell”
5YxkP TIL Bud Abbott, of Abbott and Costello, quit school at the age of ten. One of his first jobs was shilling for a house of mirrors on Coney Island, when people inevitably got lost in the maze of mirrors he would charge 10 cents to guide them out.
YpEMP TIL in the Pliocene, 3 million years ago, the world was about 2C warmer than now, and sea levels were somewhere between 10M and 40M higher than now. 2C is also the rise we hope to keep below by 2100.