› added 10 years ago

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TIL in 1988 a United States warship accidentally shot down an Iranian civilian airplane, killing nearly 300 passengers, after confusing it for an attacking F-14.

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epAwD TIL about Ghostwatch, a BBC program where in a live broadcast style, they investigated an alleged poltergeist, which unraveled into various people becoming possessed, including the host. At least one death is attributed to this broadcast.
10dO TIL that when Michael Jackson died, Google believed all the searches for his name were a DDoS attack, and blocked such searches for 30 minutes. Twitter and Wikipedia also crashed, with the Los Angeles Times suffering an outage also.
R7PQj TIL the first webcam streaming was about a group of researchers making sure they always have coffee in the pot at their lab. The cam aired it from 1993 until 2001.
EQYP TIL a private company dumped 100 tonnes of iron sulphate off the coast of Canada to promote the growing of plankton capable of absorbing carbon-dioxide from the air. It is the world’s most significant geoengineering project to date.
l76GV TIL that in the Victorian era, women wore crotchless panties and urinated in gravy boat-like vessels called “bourdalous”