› added 5 years ago

163

TIL about Posthumous Reproduction where you can “harvest” sperm from a dead person in order to reproduce

YndZ TIL that pirates wore eye patches so they could keep one eye adjusted to the darkness below the deck of the ship. If they had to quickly run back and forth between the upper and lower decks, they could just flip the eye patch up or down.
vmNL TIL Charles Manson, hoping to incite racial wars, stole his victim’s wallet and had it planted in the restroom of a gas station in what he thought was a black neighborhood; instead of inciting Helter Skelter as he had hoped, it lay there for months until discovered by a cleaning attendant.
QJYe6 TIL in the 1990s, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire's friend group called themselves 'The Pussy Posse'. They were known for partying and sleeping with lots of women in New York City, with Leo even saying "When you’re my age ... there’s not much besides sex on your mind."
4XKwb TIL the "whistling" noise used to indicate bombs falling in movies and TV shows is almost always the wrong way round. Anyone underneath a bomb that made such a sound (only specific WW2-era bombs) would hear the pitch increasing as it got closer, not decreasing, due to the Doppler effect.
woj8o TIL of Ida & Isidor Straus, a couple aboard the Titanic the night it sank. Isidor had a chance to join his wife on a life boat, but stayed behind to give his place away to a child. Ida, refusing to leave her husband behind, too left the life boat. They died together arm in arm when the ship sank.