› added 7 years ago

96

TIL that the ADE 651; an inert rod of metal with a plastic hinge, was sold as a bomb detector. It was used by the militaries of Iraq, Afghanistan and more than a dozen other countries for years before anyone noticed that it did nothing at all.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

16na7 TIL that the USSR accepted the spontaneous generation theory in the 1950's
woAdJ TIL that a carpenter got an MIT PhD. After his sailboat almost sank during a storm, Lyman Page decided to go to graduate school in physics. He went to MIT unannounced, got an unpaid night job in a lab, and worked as a carpenter. The job turned into a PhD, and Page is now a Princeton professor.
m1k5Y TIL Lars Onsager (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry) taught physics courses that were so difficult and incomprehensible they were nicknamed "Advanced Norwegian I" and "Advanced Norwegian II."
xXrb TIL Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer is Female
WnEA TIL that the ‘National Enquirer’ was the most reliable news source during the O. J. Simpson murder trial. According to a Harvard law professor who gave the media an overall failing grade, the 'Enquirer’ was the only publication that thoroughly followed every rumor and talked to every witness.