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TIL the chains that you can see hanging under school buses and trucks are there to provide traction in snow. With the flip of a switch, the chains will lower automatically and the centrifugal force sends the chains into action. [Video]

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8aG6V TIL in 1957, BBC pulled a April Fools prank by including a segment about spaghetti harvest in their news show Panorama, discussing how spaghetti is grown in fields in Switzerland. As a result, people phoned the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree.
x6vpb TIL that Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind had a different English dub back in the 80s called "Warriors of the Wind" and it was incredibly shortened. It was apparently so bad that Hayao Miyazaki adopted a "no cuts" clause for future English releases of Studio Ghibli films.
5ZVk TIL a Texas man barricaded himself in his home after biting a police officer during a traffic stop, and refused to come out for more than a decade
M7eR8 TIL The QBert arcade game had a special "knocker" inside the cabinet that would make a physical "knock" when QBert fell off the stage (landing inside the arcade cabinet.)
eYYL TIL humans can enter sleep cycles of 24-48 hours in the absence of sunlight