› added 9 years ago

142

TIL In the 1950s, the French created an anti tank weapon for airborne troops by strapping 75mm recoilless cannons to several hundred Vespa scooters. The cannon goes between the driver’s legs, and off the front of the scooter.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

gMv99 TIL Yousuf Karsh, the photographer of the scowling Winston Churchill portrait took the photo after snatching Churchill's cigar while he was smoking it.
0QbL TIL that in the early years of baseball, it was common for players to go in the stands and assault heckling fans. Ty Cobb once attacked a handicapped man for calling him a “half-nigger.” Fans shouted at him to stop because the man had no hands, he reportedly retorted “I don’t care if he got no feet”
Oo8kX One night in 1987, a Canadian man named Kenneth Parks drove for 14 miles from his house to his in-laws. He then broke in and made his way upstairs, bludgeoning his mother-in-law with a crowbar that he’d gotten from the boot of his car before stabbing her repeatedly to death. He then proceeded to choke and stab his father-in-law, who miraculously survived. Parks then drove himself to the police station and turned himself in. It sounds like a fairly cut and dry murder case, but after going to trial, Kenneth Parks walked free. Thanks to a combination of a lack of motive, his consistent version of events, and data gathered from EEG readings, no charges were pressed against him because all evidence pointed to the unlikely and bewildering truth that Parks had been sleepwalking. It remains one of the most remarkable cases of homicidal sleepwalking in history.
xAEb TIL in medieval times the Japanese used to dye their teeth black. It also acts as a dental sealant to prevent tooth decay. The reason for this was objects that were pitch black, such as glaze-like lacquer, were seen as beautiful.
xVBo7 TIL that the number of Jews worldwide as of 2019, is the same number of Jews there were in 1925, pre-WW2.