› added 2 years ago

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TIL that the WWII Japanese military had a wildfire campaign targeted at the USA, launching some 9,000 fire balloons into the jet stream, with an estimated 11% reaching the U.S. between November 1944 and April 1945. In the end the balloon bombs caused a total of six fatalities.

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Xr9P TIL that, according to a UN study, almost 1 in 4 men in the Asia-Pacific area has admitted raping someone.
p8pyQ TIL that the Boston Tea Party was caused by the British giving the East India Company tax breaks which allowed the company to undercut the price of smuggled tea in the colonies. This threatened the commercial interests of Boston’s wealthy smugglers, such as John Hancock, who fomented the revolt
6EMVQ TIL The concept for the internet started in the 1960s, when MIT’s J.C.R. Licklider popularized the idea of an “Intergalactic Network” of computers, computer scientists then developed the concept of “packet switching,” a method for effectively transmitting electronic data
VMnA0 TIL “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” was originally planned to start with Indie riding a motorcycle on the Great Wall of China, followed by the discovery of a “Lost World” type of hidden valley with dinosaurs. The idea was scrapped when the Chinese government refused to let them film there.
VMBnG TIL in the United States it is illegal for the government to have a gun database that ties a weapon directly to an owner. The Firearm Owners' Protection Act of 1986 banned the government from ever instituting such a system. A national registry database can't be implemented.