› added 2 years ago

65

TIL that Alan Turing, the mathematician renowned for his contributions to computer science and codebreaking, converted his savings into silver during WW2 and buried it, fearing German invasion. However, he was unable to break his own code describing where it was hidden, and never recovered it.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

OoVD1 TIL the act of attributing causal relationship between unrelated actions and events is called "Magical thinking", for example "If I don't brush my teeth today my dog will die", and is considered a form of OCD.
a0GJ TIL Mohammed al Qahtani (20th hijacker of the 9/11 attacks) was interrogated at Guantanamo Bay by dripping water, physical torture, prolonged strip searches, and invasion of space by a female, none of which worked; it was continuously hearing Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty” that finally broke him.
neQDW TIL that a senior officer of the B-59 Soviet submarine, Vasili Arkhipov, averted the start of a nuclear war when he made the choice not to engage in combat with the US forces near Cuba in 1962
9Yab6 TIL that back in 2800 B.C., cities in Pakistan had a form of plumbing for bathing and sanitization which would later become the influence for the modern day bathroom. & The earliest known bath tub dates back to 1700 B.C., found in the Palace of Knossos, in Crete.
wrX8 TIL when the Beatles wrote the song “With a Little Help from My Friends”, the first line ended with ‘What would you think if I sang out of tune? Would You Throw Ripe Tomatoes at Me?’, but Ringo changed it so that fans would not throw tomatoes at him should he perform it live.