› added 6 months ago

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TIL about pishtacos, an Andean Indigenous legend. People feared Spanish missionaries (pishtacos), believing the missionaries were killing people for fat, thereafter oiling church bells to make them especially sonorous.

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LkWDd TIL in World War II, a few engineers wanted to reinforce the (returned) fighter planes where most of the bullet holes were. Mr. Abraham Wald then said: Let's reinforce them where no bullet holes are instead - because apparently, airplanes hit in these spots did NOT return.
wWe8 TIL that Islamic architects invented Girih tiles — a set of tiles that can completely cover an unlimited surface in a non-periodic way — five centuries before the modern science rediscovered it as Penrose tiling.
logBK TIL what a gag order is
W7w4A TIL that the Japanese founder of McDonald’s Japan authored “The Jewish Way of Doing Business”. The book was an immediate success and went on to sell over a million copies.
VoMm TIL albums are always released on Tuesdays in the US, and no one really knows why