› added 8 months ago

54

TIL the inventor of the fire hydrant is unknown because the patent was lost in a fire too.

Read more worldatlas.com

via reddit.com

4XnRR TIL Ray Lewis grew up using a deck of cards to do push ups and sit ups. If he drew a 7 he would do 7. An ace was 25 and a Joker 30. He would go through the whole deck. In the nfl, he would do it 3 times for each exercise. Also the reason he wore 52 was because of the number of cards in the deck
6Eapw TIL in the 1950s, a researcher was designing army airplane seats for an 'average' pilot based on measurements from 1000s of airmen, only to discover this theoretical 'average' he'd derived wouldn't fit any of them. This realization led to adjustable seats, foot pedals, helmet straps and flight suits
RZLw TIL that Houston airport received an inordinate number of complaints about baggage wait times. In response, officials moved baggage claim farther away so the walk was longer than the wait. The number of complaints plummeted to “near zero.”
jNymQ TIL That there are around 1000 people in Scandanavia/Denmark that follow the old Norse belief system, worshiping the gods Odin, Thor, Njörd, Freya, etc. and the giants as well as their ancestors. This religious revival is referred as "Asatro" and meet for ceremonies related to the changing seasons.
yBA8 TIL that gagging when we see someone else vomiting is actually an evolved trait among primates. Humans would forage for food in groups. If any member of the group had an adverse reaction due to toxins in the food, it would be advantageous for the other members to take it out of their system too.