› added 11 years ago

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TIL in 1997, the USS Yorktown’s entire propulsion system failed after attempting to divide by zero

WkrmB TIL: Apples were originally nearly all bitter and were only used to make cider. However, during the prohibition in the 19th century, orchard owners used the slogan, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, in hopes of protecting their orchards and turning the apple into a health food.
18xX TIL at the start of his career, writer Kurt Vonnegut was assigned to write a column for Sports Illustrated about a racehorse that jumped the fence and ran away, after staring at the blank piece of paper on his typewriter all morning, he typed, “The horse jumped over the f**king fence”, and left.
KPoB TIL Hitlerszalonna, or “Hitler Bacon,” was the nickname given to a dense jam eaten by Hungarian soldiers and citizens during WWII. Before the war, the Austrian Emporer would send troops packages of bacon (Kaiser Bacon), but when Hitler took over the bacon was replaced with fruit jam, hence the name.
D18yg TIL that the words "ton" and "tonne" refer to different units of weight. A British ton, or "gross ton" is 2,240 pounds or 1,016.047 kg. A US ton, or "net ton" is equal to 2,000 pounds or 907.1847 kg. A tonne, or "metric ton" is equal to 1,000 kg.
LZwV TIL Hitler and Stalin had virtually no senses of humor, and only laughed at others’ expense. Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, despite looking sombre in photographs, had a sunny personality and loved joking around and making fun of himself.