› added 7 months ago

26

TIL that Piper aircraft is a state-owned firm owned by Brunei government

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

jnwa TIL Concerned about the number of cobras in Delhi, British colonial officials created a bounty, only to discover secret cobra farms created to collect the bounty. When the officials shut down the program the farms released their snakes, meaning they had far more cobras than before they started.
J1Lwm TIL whale oil was used in transmissions until its ban in 1972, when less than 1 million transmissions failed each year; without whale oil, yearly transmission failures became more than 8 million by 1975. This led to thousands of transmission shops opening across the USA in the late 1970s and ’80s
rRXDx TIL when Alexander was a boy, his tutor chastised him for burning too much incense at Gods' altars. After conquering Gaza, a major frankincense producer then, Alexander sent 500 talents of frankincense back to the old man in Macedonia, with the message: "Now you can stop short-changing the gods."
mLLE TIL that “biweekly” means BOTH “twice a week” and “every two weeks”
D1gQe TIL MI5 estimates there are as many Russian agents in London now as there were at the height of the Cold War.