› added 6 years ago

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TIL of the loudest plane ever built, the XF-84H Thunderstreak. At idle power, the propeller would create continuous sonic booms that emitted visible shock waves. Anyone nearby, regardless of ear protection, suffered severe nausea, headaches, and it even caused one man to have a seizure.

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1aJ6O TIL of Steve Comisar: a man who sold "solar powered clothes dryers" for $49.95 in national magazines. Unsuspecting customers would receive a length of clothes line.
4kNng TIL the NOAA gives financial awards to shipping lines who reduce vessel speed to protect whales
wA5M TIL that it was common belief in Medieval Europe that a magnet would lose its strength when in the presence of- among other things - garlic, goats’ blood and diamonds. This was disproved by surrounding a lodestone with 75 diamonds, then picking it up with a lump of iron.
MQ70 TIL that in 1993 a “toxic lady” (who had been ingesting large amount of Dimethyl Sulfoxide) in Riverside, CA caused doctors and nurses to become severely ill when they were exposed to her body and blood.
4X41J TIL that after the death of several Northern Irish republicans in a prison hunger strike, the Iranian government renamed the street where the British Embassy in Tehran is located from Winston Churchill Boulevard to Bobby Sands Street, after one of the strikers.