› added 1 week ago

3

TIL Columbo's signature catchphrase "Just one more thing" originated because a scene was too short, and the writers didn't want to retype the script on a typewriter, so they just had him return and add the line at the end as if he'd forgotten something.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

9YoOD TIL Dr Livingstone ('I presume') was caught and mauled by a lion but felt only a painless dreaminess, later concluding "This peculiar state is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivora; and if so, is a merciful provision by our benevolent Creator for lessening the pain of death."
e09Yk TIL about the Ice block expedition of 1959. Norwegian Company GlassVatt, inspired by a challenge from Radio Luxembourg, transported a 3 ton ice block from the Arctic Circle, all the Way to the Equator in Gabon. Despite travelling across the Sahara, most of the Ice made it.
yPMa TIL that after WWI, the Australian military started “The Great Emu War” where they tried to cull emus with machine guns… and the emus mostly won.
5Yj0P TIL Thanks to Yuan LongPing, China’s total rice output rose from 5.69 billion tons in 1950 to 19.47 billion tons in 2000. In recent years, hybrid rice has covered an area of 16millions ha, accounting for 57% of total rice area in China
nWdpb TIL the American Terex Corporation supplied Iraq with weapons technology in the 1990s, likely at the direction of the CIA and British Intelligence.