8KDZ TIL in 1915, San Diego hired a “rain maker” who used a secret mix of chemicals to “attract rain” for $10,000, payable if he filled their reservoir. It rained for most of January, destroying bridges, dams, and causing 20 deaths.
XwJP TIL the brains of rats have a “random mode” that is switched on when they are in unfamiliar situations
P7xn TIL that the Hoover Dam is expected to be one of the last remaining visible structures from our species, and it contains a star map that if no other means were available, could be used to determine the exact date on which Hoover Dam was completed.
0wMOy TIL: Paper airplanes were not created to mimic real airplanes. They predate them.
0alR TIL In 1854, during the Crimean war, the British hospital in Constantinople was extremely unhygienic. Patients lay in their own excrement, and rodents and bugs scurried past them. More soldiers died of disease than injury. Florence Nightingale fixed this by getting patients to clean the hospital.