› added 1 month ago

6

TIL that in addition to Kamikaze aircraft, Japan during WWII had manned suicide torpedoes called Kaiten. Once sealed in, the pilots could not unlock the hatches and the device would self destruct if the mission failed.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

pY6o8 TIL it rains fish in a Honduran town every year.
Ayna TIL the word “strike” as in a labor stoppage borrows from the practice of 18th Century British sailors who would strike or lower their ship’s sails and not raise them again until they’d been paid.
W7GvB TIL radiosondes are launched by balloon twice each day around the world, at the exact same time, to track the jet stream. When they come down, if you find one, you can keep it.
p8oDZ TIL that according to one 2016 analysis, 69 of the world's 100 largest economies were corporations. Walmart was 10th largest, and Toyota was larger than India.
oB5wo TIL that the eastern most part of Russia and the western most part of USA are separated by just 2.4 miles or 3.8 kilometers. Russia is the closest country to USA which doesn't share a land border.