› added 10 years ago

79

TIL Although allied with Japan, Hitler had planned to go in war against the “Yellow People” of Asia in an ultimate showdown (WWIII?) between Nazis and the Japanese Empire to see who would truly dominate the world after an Axis Victory.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

P6YE TIL the tiny island of Nauru became the world’s richest country per capita in the 60s by mining its phosphate reserves. The country blew it on spending & bad investments (e.g.“Leonardo the musical”). It’s now the ~135th richest country, with 40% diabetes rate and a wrecked environment due to mining.
9okD TIL that there was only one plane allowed to take off after flights were grounded on September 11, 2001. It was a plane carrying antivenin to a man bitten by a highly venomous snake.
nevW7 TIL exponential, log and trig functions are examples of transcendental functions, which "transcend" algebra as they can't be expressed with a sequence of the algebraic operations of addition, multiplication and root extraction. Unlike algebraic functions, they can't satisfy polynomial equations.
Y7pDx TIL that birds, despite not being mammals, have navels. In chickens, navel quality is considered an indicator of chick quality and of the level of care that was taken with the eggs during incubation.
m1lAY TIL about longest tennis match in history, Isner beat Mahut 70-68, in Wimbledon 2010; it lasted 46h34m spanned over 3 days (match was suspended twice due to fading light); this can't happen again due to new tiebreaker rule introduced in 2019