› added 6 years ago

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TIL of the largest nuclear test conducted in outer space. Starfish Prime, a July 9, 1962 high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States was launched from Johnston Island. The resulting EMP damage shut down communications, street lights and set off burglar alarms in the Hawaiian islands.

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4kK8b TIL that preflight checklists were introduced after a 1935 crash of a prototype B-17 which resulted in the deaths of both pilots. Investigation found that the pilots forgot to disengage the gust locks prior to take off.
oRpyY Today I learned that Charles Foussard spent 70 years and 303 days in custody in Ararat, Victoria (Australia) between 1903 and 1974 for killing an old man and stealing his boots, making him the prisoner with the longest effective incarceration. He died while still incarcerated.
KOnl6 TIL of the Bat Bomb, an experimental American WW2 weapon - a large canister filled with 1,040 bats, each carrying their own weight in napalm. Despite promising results, development progressed too slowly and the Bat Bob was abandoned in favour of the atomic bomb.
b9LME TIL of the Thorpe Affair, where in 1975 the head of the British Liberal Party Jeremy Thorpe hired a hitman to kill his homosexual lover from the 1960’s causing one of the biggest scandals in British politics.
P1A7G TIL: Barbra Streisand had her dog cloned twice