› added 8 years ago

686

TIL Helicopters have a top speed they can never surpass.

Read more aerospaceweb.org

via ift.tt

M7PkV TIL the 1991 Grand Sumo Tournament in London was the first official sumo wrestling tournament ever to be organized outside Japan in the 1500 years of existence of the sport
MeA4m TIL of the Holocene extinction event, one of the most significant extinction events in the history of the Earth, happening now, as a direct result of Humans.
6EwKW TIL: Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary, designed by the “Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons,” so isolated prisoners that many went insane. (The 1829 castle-like complex did have better comforts than period prisons --like dependable heat. Shut: 1971, ruin-park since '94.)
N8Y1 TIL that pre-columbian population of the Americas is estimated to have been 50-100 million people. 90% of the indigenous population died from diseases imported by europeans, most of which got infected and died without direct contact - fuelling the legend of an empty continent ready to be seized
grZ79 TIL musician Frank Zappa's father worked at the Aberdeen Proving Ground where chemical weapons were tested. The family had to store gas masks in the house. This led to Zappa's work frequently referencing biological warfare, disease, and the defense industry.