› added 11 years ago

302

TIL that a mathematician by the name of Joseph Fourier had a belief that if he wrapped his body in a blanket, it would be beneficial to his health. His death was caused by tripping on a blanket and falling down stairs.

Read more scienceworld.wolfram.com

via reddit.com

BrJBr TIL when Martin replicated Joan Baez's Martin 1929 0-45 (purchased in 1962), they included a replica of the note "Too bad you're a communist" which they found inside her original guitar. It was put there by some unidentified repair person sometime in that guitar's 40-ish year career.
xVB6k TIL King Parikshit (12th-9th centuries BCE) transformed the Kuru realm into the dominant political and cultural center of northern Iron Age India. While still a baby in his mother's womb, Ashwatthama attempted to kill him by Brahmastra (a powerful fiery weapon) for family revenge
dWKE TIL the “an average person eats nine spiders in their sleep” statistic was invented in the early 90’s as an example of the absurd things people will believe simply because they come across them on the Internet.
rN1J1 TIL: During the US Civil War, a father issued a writ of habeus corpus to get his underaged Son out of the US Army, when the writ was delivered to the camp, the provost had both the lawyer who had delivered the writ, and the Judge who had issued the writ arrested and imprisoned.
JVZv TIL in 1950 all Northrop Corporations Flying Wing aircraft contracts were canceled abruptly without explanation. Shortly thereafter, also without explanation, the Air Force smelted down all prototypes using portable smelters brought to Northrop’s facility, in plain sight of its employees.