› added 1 year ago

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TIL in 2013, two men escaped prison by helicopter , but got caught a few hours later

Read more cbc.ca

via reddit.com

wLLW1 Because most early rotary engines turned counterclockwise (from the front, clockwise from the pilot's view). The physics of rotating objects resulted in left turns being easier than right turns. That led to standard manoeuvres using left turns. And that resulted in the prime/most experienced pilot sitting with a view out of the left window, once airplanes grew large enough to have side-by-side pilots.
mxMoM TIL in fiscal year 2013 the IKEA Catalogue was printed in more than double the amount of copies than the Bible, despite only appearing in 43 countries.
okEK TIL Henry Ford once balked at paying $10,000 to General Electric for work done troubleshooting a generator, and asked for an itemized bill. The engineer who performed the work, Charles Steinmetz, sent this: “Making chalk mark on generator, $1. Knowing where to make mark, $9,999.” Ford paid the bill.
GXwN TIL IMDb is one of the oldest websites on the internet, and began on Usenet in 1990 as a list of “actresses with beautiful eyes”
LVLv TIL South Africa developed nuclear weapons and then dismantled them for the sake of peace.