› added 2 years ago

56

TIL soon after the famous D.B. Cooper hijacking, 5 other copycat hijackers employed the same tactics on other flights. All 5 survived their parachute jump which forced the FBI to re-evaluate their initial conclusion that Cooper was likely killed during his attempt.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

6ewJ TIL the pitch drop experiment is the world’s longest continuously running laboratory experiment. It measures the flow of a piece of pitch by counting the drops that fall from a funnel. Since 1927 8 drops have fallen. The ninth drop is expected to fall in 2013.
4XEW6 TIL the most decorated American unit in history is the 442nd Infantry Regiment, which was almost entirely made up of Japanese Americans. Out of the 14,000 who served, 9,486 earned the Purple Heart and 21 earned the Medal of Honor. The unit itself was awarded 8 Presidential Unit Citations.
LQjdP TIL that in the past decade, some obese patients were sent to zoos for MRI and CT scans because standard hospital machines couldn't accommodate their weight. Zoos have larger scanners designed for big animals, making them a practical solution in these cases.
yVeOl TIL that during WWII a pilot named J. Hunter Reinberg wanted to make ice cream for his men in the Pacific Theater. So he flew to 33,000 ft and came back down with gallons of chocolate ice cream.
P50J TIL in 1979, two men arrived at a sheriff’s office claiming to have been abducted by aliens with lobster-claw hands. Left alone in a room with a secret recording device to expose their lie, they instead continued to talk in “terribly distressed” voices about the abduction.