› added 7 months ago

20

TIL that in 1916, German spies sabotaged a US munitions plant in NYC resulting in one of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions in history that caused 530 million in property damage, including damaging the Statue of Liberty, and was felt as far away as Philadelphia.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

P1aDw TIL that filmmaker Preston Sturges died of a heart attack in the middle of writing his autobiography. He had planned to title his autobiography "The Events Leading Up to My Death".
5LV9 TIL the Manchineel tree is considered one of the most poisonous tree in the world. It causes painful blisters if you stand under it during rain, blinds you if the smoke from its burned wood touches your eyes, can poison water with its leaves and will cause death if you eat its fruits.
p8mpe TIL cities house 62.7% of the US population but occupies only 3.5% of land area
e0pXg TIL in the 1960's NASA funded a study attempting to get dolphins to speak English, wherein a woman lived in a partially flooded house with a dolphin, they took LSD together, and she gave the dolphin handjobs. Ultimately, they discovered it was not possible to teach a dolphin to speak English.
E1m6W TIL that thanks to a technicality in a 1912 treaty, Japanese nationals were entitled to work in the Netherlands without a permit between 2014 and 2017