› added 6 years ago

179

TIL that in 1474 a rooster was put on trial because it laid an egg and the villagers thought that it made a pact with devil. He was found guilty and burned alive and it was later found out that the rooster was a hen that just looked like a rooster.

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BERW TIL a key ingredient in root beer (sassafras root) was found to be carcinogenic and banned in 1960 by the FDA. Artificial versions are now generally used instead
ANMKd TIL that it cost NASA more than $50 million to fix a 2-micron deviation in the Hubble's primary mirror to develop COSTAR, which basically acted as "glasses" for the telescope
V1KD TIL some bombers such as B-52 Stratofortress are designed to “Fail deadly” meaning they are guaranteed to detonate their nuclear payload if they are hit and fall below a certain altitude to discourage the enemy from shooting them down in the first place
PPVL TIL that Astronomers had made a sweet discovery: simple sugar molecules floating in the gas around a star some 400 light-years away, suggesting the possibility of life on other planets.
vKvR TIL that one reason Portugal remained neutral in WWII was to honor a treaty it made with England in 1386