› added 10 years ago

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TIL that in 1964 two students attempted to kidnap the British Prime Minister. The plot was foiled when he offered them beer. They accepted and abandoned their plot. This breach of security was only revealed in 2009.

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J1MV8 TIL Roman concrete structures such as the Pantheon and aqueducts are ultra durable because of lime clasts. While many modern concrete structures crumble after a few decades, Roman concrete has self-healing functionality from lime clasts which allow their structures to survive millennia.
VMp1p TIL that farmers in USA are hacking their John Deere tractors with Ukrainian firmware, which seems to be the only way to actually own the machines and their software, rather than rent them for lifetime from John Deere.
nWxWW TIL that bioluminescence in fireflies is nearly 100 percent efficient, meaning little energy is wasted to produce their light.
b9xbQ TIL that Mozart's letters and compositions are sometimes profoundly scatological ("by the love of my skin, I shit on your nose, so it runs down your chin")
KVKB TIL that the Coney Island style hot dog as we know it started in Michigan and not Coney Island in New York.