› added 9 years ago

99

TIL that Tokyo has a massive underground water storage area to deal with typhoons and flooding

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waN6 TIL of a P51 fighter pilot captured by the Japanese after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Under torture for info about the Manhattan Project - which he was ignorant of - Marcus McDilda made up a lie that the US had 100 bombs and that Tokyo was the next target. Japan soon surrendered.
n0po TIL Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, a one-time Grand Wizard of the KKK, later recanted his former racism, spoke openly of interracial harmony, and was denounced by Confederate veterans for it.
pjAe TIL in 1963, at the height of the Cold War, the US military launched a ring of 480million needles into orbit around the earth. It was hoped they would more reliably bounce radio signals back to earth in case the Soviets cut through undersea cables. Multiple clumps of these needles are still up there
v1adL TIL that test audiences for 'Good Night, and Good Luck' complained that the actor playing Joseph McCarthy was over the top. They didn't realize that it wasn't an actor, but archival footage of McCarthy himself.
OoEy7 TIL that engineers in Germany created “Brain Driver,” a car that can be driven with thoughts alone. Brain Driver’s headset consists of 16 sensors that monitor electrical signals from the brain.