› added 6 years ago

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TIL in 1973 before reality TV, an anthropologist sailed across the Atlantic with 11 attractive people of different races/sex/nationalities. Known as the "sex raft" he'd purposely done this to stoke sexual relations, create tension, and purposely sought danger to see if humans would act like monkeys.

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R71Aj TIL that the A-10 Warthog has a dedicated windshield washer fluid reservoir specifically for clearing the canopy of soot and carbon after the cannon is fired. It also has fins under the air frame to redirect gun gasses from being sucked into the engines and starving them of oxygen.
epZrE TIL Spongebob Squarepants is credited for creating wider awareness of Leif Erikson Day outside the Norwegian-American community
4kPNN TIL Sheb Wooley's song "The Purple People Eater" was initially rejected by MGM Records. However, the song resonated with the young people at MGM, who would gather in a group of up to 50 people to listen to it during lunch. Afterwards, MGM reconsidered and released the song.
KODdJ TIL modern nuclear submarines are so well cloaked that in 2009, two French and British nuclear ballistic missle subs collided in the atlantic ocean by pure chance. Moving very slowly, they were't able to detect each other just feet apart.
woDDo TIL The diet of roman gladiators was carefully currated, but research suggests that said diet was carb rich with little protein. Instead of being muscular, like they're depicted in art, they were chonky with large amounts of subcutaneous fat, likely because the fat acted as an extra layer of armor