› added 8 years ago

89

TIL that Fallout’s “Fat Man” actually existed in real life. In the 1950’s, the US developed the Davy Crockett launcher that would fire essentially a mini-nuke with a 10 or 20 ton yield.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

oROJ8 TIL In the 1800s, individuals secured government jobs through connections to presidents, not by merit. This practice ended after a disgruntled job-seeker assassinated President James A. Garfield, whom he believed owed him a government appointment.
grMJD TIL 19th century French utopian socialist Pierre Leroux advocated the system of Circulus, which proposed human excrement to be collected as a tax by the state to be reused as fertiliser
KOeKa TIL that in 1874, the NY Herald published an article about a mass escape of wild animals from the zoo, concluding with "the story given above is a pure fabrication". Most readers overlooked the final paragraph, and it sparked a mass panic, with the NY Times editor leaving his house with two pistols
gMQPX TIL at least 11 children have been born in Antarctica. The first was Emilio Marcos Palma, born on 7 January 1978 to Argentine parents .
vZPD TIL the “debate” about vaccines and autism, began after a fraudulent paper was published. The author is no longer licensed to practice. Countless dollars have been spent to debunk his claims, and innocent children have probably died due to his lies.