› added 9 years ago

155

TIL an ancient method of starting fire in SE Asia used a device called a fire piston that used rapidly compressed air to ignite a piece of tinder–the same principle used in diesel engines.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

pYPjA TIL in The Shawshank Redemption, Morgan Freeman's character was asked why he is called "Red" and he jokingly replied, "Maybe because I'm Irish." The character in the book was an Irish man with red hair, but the filmmakers cast Freeman for the role and added the line for humor.
EgO6o TIL TVs were banned in Bhutan until June of 1999
PYZQZ TIL the anime studio Ufotable's name was created when its CEO saw a cool UFO-looking table and decided to name the studio after it
XEybD TIL: The huge underground secret bunker located at Mt. Weather, VA, intended to house the Government in case of a nuclear war, was disclosed to the public when TWA Flight 514 slammed into the mountain close to the entrance of the base in 1974.
XEMwE TIL On average, genetic similarity between any two humans is 99.9%. There is about 2–3 times more genetic diversity within the wild chimpanzee population, than in the entire human gene pool.