› added 10 years ago

144

TIL that Charles Whitman, the Texas Tower shooter, asked for an autopsy to be done after his death to determine what made him kill. The autopsy found a tumor pressing on his amygdala, possibly influencing his actions.

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vA7K TIL the often-quoted idiom “seeing is believing” leaves out half of the original sentence. The full quote from 17th century English clergyman, Thomas Fuller, is “Seeing is believing, but feeling is the truth.”
167VV TIL In an experiment, participants were asked if they would be willing to pay either "a $5 fee" or "small $5 fee" to have DVDs shipped overnight. Spendthrifts were indifferent, but tightwads were 20 percent more likely to pay the fee if called “small.”
7ApZ TIL in Philadelphia there are such things as “courtesy cards” which are often given to the friends or family of a police officer and they allow the user to get out of minor offenses such as speeding or running a stop sign if given to a police officer while they’re writing the ticket.
KJ8E TIL there’s a series of 70-foot-long concrete arrows that bisects the country longitudinally all the way from SF to NYC, all designed to direct aerial traffic. They are from the pre-digital age and were installed by the Federal government in 1924, coupled with light signals to guide the way.
4XLLX TIL that the tin can was invented in 1810, but the can opener was not invented until 1855. Before the can opener people used hammer and chisel to open their tin cans