› added 10 years ago

117

TIL Sam Houston, the general who won Texas independence from Mexico, was removed from his post as Governor of Texas after refusing to support the Confederacy during the Civil War

gVoL TIL When Charles Manson didn’t receive any gifts for Christmas one year he responded by stealing all of his classmates toys and burning them.
8N8P TIL The Grape flavoring in Grape Kool Aid is also used as Bird Teargas. In 2004, Grape flavoring started being used to drive birds away from major Airports such as the 7,800 acre O'Hare International Airport. The grape flavoring acts to birds much like Amonia acts to humans.
aw6O0 TIL Harry Glicken's was devastated when his mentor David Johnson died during the eruption of Mt St Helens in 1980. Glicken met the same fate 11 year's later during the eruption of Mt Unzen in Japan. Glicken and Johnson are the only American volcanologists to have died in volcanic eruptions.
BgYAD TIL that fungi were found growing inside the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that actually feed on radiation. They use a process called "radiosynthesis" to convert gamma rays into chemical energy, similar to how plants use photosynthesis to convert sunlight.
X0x8j TIL of the first king of Tibet, Nyatri Tsenpo (literally "Neck-Enthroned King"), an outsider who the Tibetans enthroned and carried on their necks because they believed his strength and physical deformities, which included webbed hands and eyelids closing from the bottom, were signs of his divinity.