› added 7 years ago

217

TIL Dawn dish soap is made from petroleum which makes it better at cleaning oil and grease, especially from animals affected by oil spills.

Read more npr.org

via reddit.com

1aOk7 TIL that in 1942 a dental surgeon from Pennsylvania USA wrote to the White House suggesting the use of incendiary bombs attached to bats, what ensued was $2 million dollars in research and a burnt down Air Force base.
KmV6 TIL in 1965, two astronauts in orbit reported: “We have an object, looks like a satellite going from north to south, probably in polar orbit…I see a command module and eight smaller modules in front. The pilot of the command module is wearing a red suit.”
awg50 TIL a woman was killed in her car in Brooklyn when a bullet ricocheted off of the ocean nearby and hit her through her open car window. The perpetrator was a man who’d been practicing shooting at a floating beer can on his boat in the middle of the bay.
6MrY TIL that the “Vulcan nerve pinch” concept on Star Trek (1966) was invented by Leonard Nimoy when he and the series’ writers were trying to figure out how an unarmed Spock could overpower an adversary without resorting to violence.
VB18p TIL Richard Nixon's VP Spiro Agnew borrowed $200k ($1.4m today) from Frank Sinatra to pay off tax debts.