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TIL in 2010, Raytheon used prisoners to test a device called the “Active Denial System”, which fires an invisible heat-beam that is capable of causing unbearable pain

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NXyEE TIL France once tried to establish decimal time (changing the length of seconds, hours, weeks, months) and it didn't go well.
pa9Q TIL that a Soviet underground nuclear test triggered an earthquake that measured 6.97 on the Richter scale and created a 2 km lake with the ensuing 80 million ton avalanche!
8a9b TIL that Johnny Cash was the first American to hear about Joseph Stalin’s death, while working as a decoder for the US Army
kO1dg TIL that in 1939, George Dantzig, arrived late for class and assumed that the two problems written on the board was a homework assignment. When turning it in, he apologized for taking long to finish; it turned out that he had solved two estwhile unsolved / unproved problems in statistics.
EgOao TIL Smaller families of 1-2 children are not a new phenomena as many believe in the developed world. America dropped below 2.1 births per woman all the way back in 1973; most developed countries are the same, dropping below replacement rate in the 70s and early 80s.