› added 9 years ago

88

TIL that a nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki instead of Kyoto partly because the Secretary of War at the time had his honeymoon there and admired it too much.

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v1Adj TIL John Von Neumann was an American polymath who is known as the last of the great mathematicians. On his deathbed, he entertained his brother by reciting the first lines of each page of Goethe’s Faust word-for-word by heart. He knew state secrets, so federal agents guarded his bed till his death.
781jO TIL that clapping at the base of the Pyramid of Kukulkan produces an echo that sounds like the chirping of a Resplendent Quetzal, a bird that was sacred to the Maya culture.
gr7e9 TIL on a 12ft wide 30mph road you are 50% more likely to get into an accident than a 9ft lane.
mxYbR TIL in 1925, two medical students received a cadaver and a challenge. In response, they spent 1,500 hours dissecting a human nervous system -- beginning at the base of the brain and working downward -- leaving the system intact in one continuous piece.
j6AnN TIL Walking through a doorway can cause a person to forget their original task or thought, known as the "doorway effect."