› added 1 week ago

4

TIL that 45 years ago, Saudi Arabia built a 1,200-kilometer oil pipeline from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, just in case the Strait of Hormuz ever got blocked

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

b6myp TIL Switzerland is the only member of the WTO (World Trade Organization) who calculates customs duties on industrial goods by weight, not value, since 1848. This 'ad pondus' method, favoring lighter, high-value goods, contrasts with the common 'ad valorem' system.
OjLa TIL Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the first head of the British SIS, had a wooden leg which he would suddenly stab with a pen knife in the middle of agent interviews. If the man flinched, he wasn’t fit to be an agent.
D15wP TIL that 2 of the 9/11 plane hijackers took a flight school in Florida to receive flight training, but told their instructors they didn’t need to be taught how to take off or land.
Lkplv TIL that in 1978, three Indiana teenagers were killed in when their Pinto was involved in a rear-end collision. Ford was indicted on three counts of reckless homicide. Indiana v. Ford was the first time a corporation faced criminal charges for a defective product and charged with murder.
mx5gy TIL that due to a researcher’s offhand comment about octopus DNA seeming “alien”, many news outlets mistakenly began reporting that cephalopods had actually come from outer space.