› added 4 years ago

69

TIL in 2009 an oil futures trader traded 7 million barrels of oil during an "alcohol-induced blackout", causing a loss of nearly $10M to his company and briefly driving the oil price up by over $1.50 per barrel

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

k4je TIL that the worst school mass murder in U.S. history was in Bath, Michigan in 1927, when Andrew Kehoe killed 45 people, 38 of whom were children at an elementary school.
7r4YZ TIL The Roland 808 drum machine was commercial and critical flop because it didn't produce a realistic drum sound. However, its 'unusual' synthetic beats and effects made it a cult favourite among EDM and hip-hop artists, which eventually turned the 808 into the icon it is today.
p8GPG TIL Operation Popeye was the first example of weather warfare. During the Vietnam War, aircraft would "seed" clouds, causing them to precipitate with an 82% success rate. The operational slogan was, "Make mud, not war."
nWa5o TIL that Germany's first post WWII Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, invented among other things a soy sausage during WWI
6EgGY TIL the US Navy replaced expensive and clunky periscope controls on submarines with Xbox 360 controllers, which reduced training time from hours to minutes