› added 9 years ago

263

TIL: There was an anti-car jacking device called the “Blaster” in South Africa, the occupant could flip a switch and direct 5 metre plumes of flame upward into the facial area of anyone trying to enter the vehicle through the doors or windows.

Read more news.bbc.co.uk

via reddit.com

E1BYp TIL the Monkees never outsold the Beatles and Rolling Stones (as widely reported). Michael Nesmith was giving an interview in 1977 and lied. "It isn’t too well known that we sold over 35 million records in 1967", said Nesmith. He wondered if it was too outrageous, the next day it was printed as fact
r6Gx TIL the International Space Station runs Linux as an operating system and has had it’s computers infected with viruses more than once. It is also travelling at 5 miles per second and orbits Earth every 92 minutes.
16E1D TIL that ancient Mesopotamian temples were used as banks creating some of the worlds first financial records on clay tablets
ADbKx TIL of the most famous person ever to have literally been in a pickle, Horatio Nelson. He died at sea, so the surgeon on board pickled his body in brandy to preserve it for the long trip to England. 2 weeks into the journey, gaseous pressures burst the cask lid, making Nelson "rise from the dead."
7nZr TIL that spiders tune each strand of their web to a specific frequency by making some strans tighter than others so that when something is caught in it, the spider can easily pinpoint where it is. This is also used for determining whether what cause the sound is a food or a potential mate.