› added 10 years ago

229

TIL that, because of the wide use of plastics and polyurethane foam in modern furnishings, house fires today spread 8 times faster than they did 40 years ago.

Read more youtube.com

via reddit.com

jZOa TIL Americans now spend more money on slot machines than movies, baseball, and theme parks combined.
awVX9 TIL that amethyst was considered one of the five most precious gemstones, alongside diamond, ruby, sapphire, and emerald. When large deposits were found in Brazil, the value of amethyst plummeted, and today it is considered only semiprecious.
78aXL TIL a surprising number of cultures believe the "man in the moon" was a wood cutter banished there for a crime.
8VnP TIL in the 1940’s Stetson Kennedy went undercover as a Klansman, gave Klan passwords to the writers of the popular “Superman” radio show, who used them in a story line in which Superman fights the KKK. Kennedy has been dubbed “the greatest single contributor to the weakening of the Ku Klux Klan”
W7r6Y TIL that Navajo language was used to carry top-secret messages during the Pacific campaign, WW2. Navajo, a native american language, is incredibly complex and obscure, it was thought to be impossible to decipher by the Japanese Army