› added 7 years ago

717

TIL as a reaction to slipping behind in the space race, the United States Air Force developed a plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon. The main objective was to cause a nuclear explosion that would be visible from Earth, boosting the morale of the Amercian people.

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ZLZY TIL an ex-member of Pink Floyd, in “a real act of mad genius,” pranked the band by writing a seemingly simple song that the band could never learn; each time they rehearsed it, he would arbitrarily change the chords, then sing it back to them to correct them. It was called “Have You Got It Yet?”
9YWo6 TIL in 1638, Pope Urban VIII commissioned the song Miserere from Allegri based on Psalm 51 & forbade transcriptions from being made. In 1770, Mozart at age 14 copied it from memory under threat of excommunication. Word got back to the Pope, who summoned Mozart & awarded him a Papal Knighthood.
x6keB TIL that cranberry bogs (where your cranberries come from) are filled with wolf spiders 😰
neVjW TIL of Michel Lotito, who dissembled and consumed (among other things) 18 bicycles, 15 shopping carts, 7 TV’s and 1 Cessna aircraft. He was awarded a brass plaque by the Guinness Book of Records, which he also ate.
BgGxr TIL a study on professional slap fighting analyzed 333 slaps for visible signs of concussion & found that more than 50% of the slap sequences resulted in fighters showing visible signs of concussion, with nearly 80% of the fighters demonstrating at least 1 sign of concussion during their matches.