› added 1 week ago

4

TIL that in 1923, a man named Harry Grindell Matthews claimed he invented a “death ray” and demonstrated it to the British military - but the device never worked and he kept disappearing with the demonstration equipment.

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JMw1 TIL that ‘Vanilla’ comes from the latin word 'Vagina’ due to the way the way the pod must be split open to expose the seeds (#3)
QJ789 TIL 5-10% of Melanesians have blond hair making them one of a few non-European people and the only dark skinned people outside of Australia known to possess a mutation allowing for this growth.
N7KV1 TIL that during the manhattan project, there was a legitimate concern that upon the detonation of an atomic bomb, the atmosphere would ignite and turn the earth into a mini star, killing everybody.
Me0Ra TIL about the longest Filibuster in American History - A 24 hour speech by Sen. Storm Thurmond with the intention of stalling the passing of the civil rights act of 1957. He successfully spoke from 8:54pm to 9:12pm the next day, but the bill was still passed.
5YG8 TIL power rangers came from a japanese show called super sentai and for their 35th anniversary they made a movie where all 199 of them team up