› added 6 years ago

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TIL that on April Fool's Day in 1974, a man in Alaska pranked an entire town by setting a bunch of tiles alight in a dormant volcano, creating a smoke plume that caused a lot of commotion and ended up with a US Coast Guard helicopter being sent to investigate.

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yQv9e TIL of Rope Memory where women would weave SOFTWARE by hand for the Apollo program
koom TIL That Pythagoras is reported to have sentenced one of his students to death by drowning after the student proved that the square root of two was irrational. (Pythagoras believed all numbers were rational).
GAkdJ TIL that in 1795, the British Government began requiring hair powder users to pay a 1 Guinea annual fee (roughly £100 pounds today) or face substantial fines. In its first year, the tax raised £200,000. By the time it was repealed in 1869, it yielded an annual revenue of £1,000.
Ooyd7 TIL that the ACLU was originally founded as the Civil Liberties Bureau after World War I broke out in 1917 to oppose the creation of a draft and protect conscientious objectors to World War I.
160oP TIL that Los Angeles has oil rigs concealed in fake buildings all over the city including one that's meant to resemble a synagogue and even has a small island chain built off it's coast for the sole purpose of drilling oil. They are the only decorated oil islands in the United States.