› added 11 years ago

54

TIL that in 1856, William Palmer, as he stepped onto the gallows to be executed for murder, is said to have looked at the trapdoor and exclaimed, “Are you sure it’s safe?”

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5VK1p Today I Learned that there was an 870-person-capacity jail boat moored off Riker's Island in NYC which was in use as recently as last year.
eogb TIL “Low-background steel” is steel made before the first nuclear bomb tests in the 40’s because modern steel is contaminated with radionuclides because its production used atmospheric air
m1WmR TIL that anti-climb paint, is a non-drying oil-based paint that can take over three years to cure. It's used to deter trespassing by making surfaces difficult to climb and identifying intruders, as it's tough to remove.
PpxE TIL that a man became stranded in an African desert, 20 miles away from the nearest village, when his car broke down. He escaped by building a motorcycle from his broken car and rode it out of the desert.
AY8a TIL that the light from the sun pushes the earth with a force of about 2 metric tonnes