› added 5 years ago

170

TIL the US Navy replaced expensive and clunky periscope controls on submarines with Xbox 360 controllers, which reduced training time from hours to minutes

Read more theverge.com

via reddit.com

P1QrE TIL Peter Farrelly, one of the "Farrelly brothers," made 'Movie 43' - a Razzie winner for worst director and worst picture. Five years later he won Best Picture and Best Screenplay for 'Green Book'
XEgvR TIL that one widely-accepted theoretical cause of some of the largest mass extinction events in history are mantle plumes. They form over millions of years when magma near the earth's core heats up and rises until it reaches the crust, causing widespread volcanic activity over gigantic areas.
jv9j TIL that on this day in 1964, 3 civil rights activists trying to get to get black voters registered to vote in Mississippi were murdered by the KKK. National outrage over their death helped spur support for the Civil Rights Act.
Grg7 TIL that sign languages vary dramatically between different countries. American Sign Language is related to French Sign Language, and signers of both can understand each other some, but British Sign Language is unintelligible to them.
5VrKR TIL until 1974, the US billion was quantified as 1,000 million and the UK billion was 1 million million.