› added 12 years ago

143

TIL motorcycle helmets were invented by the neurosurgeon who attended to Lawrence of Arabia after his fatal motorcycle crash.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

ZpdbB TIL Up until the late 19th century in Naples, pasta was a street food eaten with bare hands. People would tilt back their head and lower the pasta into their open mouths, often one uninterrupted fistful after another. Tourists would come to Naples just to watch the locals eat in the streets.
pYemN TIL that the Sahara Desert fertilizes the Amazon rainforest!
e0Qv5 TIL that in 1973 a Mercedes-Benz 770 F-Cabriolet that was stated to be Hitler's parade limousine was sold for a then record of $153,000. A week later it was revealed to have belonged to Finnish President Carl Mannerheim, but this news was ignored, and the car broke the record again half a year later
jW9p TIL Universal Studios, Inc sued Sony and its distributors in 1976, alleging that because Sony was manufacturing a device (Betamax) that could be used for copyright infringement, they were thus liable for any infringement committed by its purchasers. Essentially trying to kill videotape recording.
vPDDL TIL about the Pinto Memo - a 1973 letter from Ford which said it was more cost-effective to let people die in crashes and pay the lawsuits than recall and repair leaking Pinto gas tanks