› added 8 years ago

73

TIL in 1940 two Royal Australian Air Force training airplanes collided in mid-air, becoming locked together. As the aircraft were traveling in the same direction, they became an impromptu biplane and we’re landed safely by the pilot of the upper plane. There were no deaths.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

78wAx TIL on 3 December 1894, the author of Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson was talking to his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine when he suddenly exclaimed, "What's that?", then asked his wife, "Does my face look strange?", and collapsed and died a few hours later due to a stroke.
BrWor TIL that Salvador Dali made a painting for prisoners at Rikers Island which hung in the prisoner dining room for 15 years, but when it was moved to the prison lobby for "safekeeping" two prison guards and two wardens stole the painting (replacing it with their own crudely drawn and mismatched fake)
W7MoL TIL that Nikola Tesla tried to sell several governments on a "death ray" that would destroy armies and planes from 200 miles away
EgnaX TIL Sigmund Freud made the decision to flee Austria after his daughter Anna was interrogated by the Gestapo for nearly 12 hours. He was able to buy safe passage out of Austria just in time with 31,000 Reich marks in 1938
neVE9 TIL about the first robot. The servant of Philon was an ancient Greek humanoid figure capable of automatically filling a wine cup when placed in its hand. It accomplished its task using a pneumatic system that was very advanced for its time.