› added 8 years ago

164

TIL the pulsejet engine can be made with zero moving parts.

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yQ41X TIL, people in medieval times used to sniff their own farts to ward off plagues. The air was thought to be dangerous, so strong smells were believed to repel infection.
MeP6b TIL on Kinmen (a small group of islands off the coast of mainland China controlled by Taiwan) knives are made from spent artillery shells. "Kinmen knives" were originally made from Allied artillery during WWII; blacksmiths now use shells fired from mainland China during the 1950s-1970s.
p84oQ TIL Sarah Jessica Parker's ancestor Esther Elwell was accused of being a witch in 1692 Salem when a young girl claimed to have seen her ghost strangling her neighbor. Esther's case never went to court and she escaped a tragic death by a matter of days, as Salem stopped trying witches 1 month prior.
D7Dr TIL that in 1971, a thief broke into a house and was shot in the legs by a trap set up by the homeowner. The thief then sued for damages–and won.
ePOL TIL General Motors used live animals as crash test dummies up until 1993 and once received a letter “so mean it ended up in the hands of the FBI”.