› added 11 months ago

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TIL during WW2, Imperial Japan experimented with entomological warfare by attacking two Chinese territories with bombs filled with cholera-carrying houseflies. The attacks each killed over 200,000 people in the ensuing epidemics.

Z01Q TIL 1994 NBA MVP Hakeem Olajuwon released a $35 sneaker instead of endorsing shoes from Nike or Reebok because: “How can a poor working mother with three boys buy Nikes or Reeboks that cost $120?…She can’t. So kids steal these shoes from stores and from other kids. Sometimes they kill for them.”
NyDQ TIL Ben Affleck once asked Michael Bay on the set of Armageddon: Wouldn’t it make more sense just to train experienced astronauts how to drill instead of the other way around (?), and Bay responded “shut the f%ck up”.
8aOka TIL when in the 80s cheaper brands were lowering Intel's market share, the brand didn't know how to convince users to buy Intel-based PCs. But one retailer told them it would be enough to just tell people computers had Intel chips - and their idea, "Intel Inside" campaign, was a big sales success.
WkaY8 TIL “Infantry” sounds like “infant” as typically in ancient times an army’s infantry consisted of soldiers too young or too inexperienced to ride a horse and be part of the cavalry.
yQK9M TIL Bam Margera, while sponsored by Nike, hated wearing the shoes to skate so much, that he used other shoes and cut out a nike symbol to paste over them so he could skateboard properly