› added 6 years ago

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TIL that "survivorshp bias" has its name from WWII where engineers failed to increase bomber pilot's chance of surviving when they increased armour on bombers where bullet holes where most often found until a statistician then proposed to increase armour where holes couldn't be found.

BrlDe TIL the Lewis & Clark expedition only suffered one casualty. Dysentery, snake bites, a dislocated shoulder, venereal disease and Lewis being shot in the buttocks after being mistaken for an elk all threatened the group's well-being, but the only man to die did so as a result of a burst appendix.
D1vZg TIL Lake Laogai in Avatar: The Last Airbender was based on "Laogai", a prison system in China that attempted to reform people with labor
mxMbP TIL when Renault was planning to release a model called Zoe, a woman named Zoe Renault sued the company to make them change the car's name. However, the court allowed Renault to release the Zoe, which has become the all-time top selling electric car in the French market.
8anV4 TIL that Spirit Airlines once had a person in charge of writing apology letters to disappointed customers. The "senior manager of proactive customer communications" mailed off about 20,000 apologies a year. Each one explained what went wrong on a flight and contained the manager's direct phone line.
9wKnD TIL In 1960, Tonight Show host Jack Paar resigned and walked off mid-broadcast after a joke about toilets was censored. He changed his mind and returned three weeks later on the condition that he could tell the joke.