› added 3 years ago

91

TIL the spiked ball and chain was never an actually used in warfare; it is entirely a fantasy weapon invented by later peoples but attributed to the middle ages

Read more publicmedievalist.com

via reddit.com

lo0JG TIL that 19 players died playing football in 1905 and about to be banned by colleges until Teddy Roosevelt changed it making it safer and saved Football. Such as the forward pass, a neutral zone, prohibitions against brutal maneuvers like kneeing and punching opponents using locked hands.
b6Mvj TIL that for decades, radiotherapy patients had reported phenomena such as "flashes of bright or blue light" when receiving radiation for brain cancer. This was confirmed to be Cherenkov light being generated in the fluids of the eye by researchers in 2019.
Z51v TIL that on April Fools Day in 1989, billionaire Richard Branson designed a hot air balloon to look like a UFO, and hired a dwarf in an E.T. costume to come out and scare whoever was near it when it landed.
1aNjW TIL in 1941 German state, military and Nazi Party officials created a plan known as the Hunger Plan to seize food from the USSR to feed the German military and population. It was agreed that as a result tens of millions of Soviet citizens would starve to death within the first year of occupation.
WkeGX TIL of Australian Soldier Jim Moody, who smuggled Horrie, his battalion's mascot back to Australia after WWII, violating quarantine laws. Ordered to surrender Horrie to be destroyed, he purchased another dog from a pound and surrendered it, and Horrie lived many years.