TIL city of Palm springs California would routinely burn down Black family homes to make room for shopping center redevelopments (www.bbc.com)
The state of California is considering giving the descendants of slaves $1.2m each.
TIL NASA calculated that you only need 40 digits of Pi to calculate the circumference of the observable universe, to the accuracy of 1 hydrogen atom (www.jpl.nasa.gov)
TIL human bodies can incinerate and turn to ash and dust instantly during a rapid implosion (kbin.social)
Titan Sub Implosion...
TIL why those with autism avoid eye contact; an overactive subcortical system, combined with an imbalance in the excitatory and inhibitory systems, can make eye contact feel like 'burning' (www.sciencedaily.com)
Direct gaze - that is, eye contact with another person - causes the subcortical system to overload, and the parts of the brain that deal with arousal and calming are failing to strike a balance. The end result is that direct eye contact triggers a physiological response which makes it physically uncomfortable to maintain eye...
TIL the infamous 1/3 (Third Pounder) burger was relaunched as the 3/9 burger to overcome certain customers' thinking it was smaller than McDonald's 1/4 (Quarter Pounder) burger with the tagline "It's Bigger/ genius." (www.thrillist.com)
TIL that producers of the 1980 STAR WARS Christmas music album replaced the lead singer for the track "R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas" with the 17 y/o kid who was sweeping floors at the studio, and he nailed it. His name was Jon Bon Jovi. (en.wikipedia.org)
Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album is a record album produced in 1980 by RSO Records. It features recordings of Star Wars-themed Christmas songs and stories about a droid factory where the robots make toys year-round for "S. Claus". Much of the album is sung and narrated by British actor Anthony Daniels, reprising...
TIL that in industrialized countries, the most widespread contact allergy is to nickel, impacting 8-19% of adults and 8-10% of children, with women being 4-10 times more likely to be affected than men. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL 70,000 years ago a volcanic eruption killed many humans, leaving only 1,000 human alive in the whole word. This created a population bottleneck which vastly reduced diversity in human genetics. (en.wikipedia.org)
The Toba eruption (sometimes called the Toba supereruption or the Youngest Toba eruption) was a supervolcano eruption that occurred around 74,000 years ago at the site of present-day Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. It is one of Earth's largest known explosive eruptions. The Toba catastrophe theory holds that this event caused a...
TIL O Say, Can You See has a second stanza that has a slightly religious bent. (hymnary.org)
TIL ancient Egyptians didn't use Hieroglyphics as an everyday writing system. They reserved this for special functions. The Egyptians used two script-like writing systems called Hieratic and Demotic. This eventually became Coptic script. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that arguably the first comprehensive English dictionary was written by one dude over the course of seven years and that was THE dictionary for 70+ years (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that William Whipple, who signed the US Declaration of Independence, freed his slave after signing, saying, "I hope it will be the means of dispensing the blessings of Freedom to all the human race in America." (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL passage of merchandise over the Silk Road was a mere trickle compared with the maritime flow of goods between India and Rome during the first-millennium CE (scroll.in)
"Roman texts convey little meaningful information about Indian political dynasties and offer even less about the practical operations of Indo-Roman trade. A series of Egyptian documents has recently revolutionised understanding of the logistical and political requirements for moving bulk goods from India across the Sahara and...
TIL about Blanche Monnier, a French woman who was kept locked in a small room for 25 years after she tried marrying someone her mother didn't like. She laid there in her own excrement, starving, for over 2 decades. (en.wikipedia.org)
"In 1876, at the age of 27, she desired to marry an older lawyer who was not to her mother's liking; she argued that her daughter could not marry a "penniless lawyer".[4] Her disapproving mother, angered by her daughter's defiance, locked her in a tiny, dark room in the attic of their home, where she kept her secluded for 25...
TIL During the 2000's, Google, Apple, Adobe, Intel, and several other mega corporations had a mutual agreement not to hire each other's employees in order to keep salaries low. This led to a 400 mil class action lawsuit. (www.npr.org)
The suit alleged Google, Apple Intel and Adobe agreed not to recruit each others employees in order to drive down wages.
TIL about the philosophical concept of Solipsism: the only thing you can be truly sure exists is the Self. (en.m.wikipedia.org)
It's an extreme view, and not many professionals endorse it, but it is an interesting thought!
TIL Canadian researchers watched 'The Dr. Oz Show' and found that nearly 40% of the medical advice is not evidence-based, and 15% goes directly against evidence. (www.reliasmedia.com)
TIL that a parrot named Willie alerted its owner, Megan Howard, when a toddler began to choke. Willie began screaming "mama, baby" while flapping its wings as the child turned blue, saving the girls life. (www.telegraph.co.uk)
TIL that Ford filed a patent over technology that could remotely disable a car radio or air conditioner, lock someone out of a vehicle, or cause a car to constantly beep, if a car payment is missed. (fortune.com)
Ford Motor Co. has filed for a patent on technology that could remotely shut down your radio or air conditioning, lock you out of your vehicle, or prompt it to ceaselessly beep if you miss car payments. Ford said it has no plans to use the technology, contained in just one of the many patents filed by the auto-making giant....
TIL about the Puss Caterpillar, it may look harmless with its soft and furry appearance, but it conceals venomous spines that can cause excruciating pain upon contact that even morphine struggles to quell. (en.wikipedia.org)
"The inch-long larva is generously coated in long, luxuriant hair-like setae, making it resemble a tiny Persian cat, the characteristic that presumably gave it the name "puss". It is variable in color, from downy grayish white to golden brown to dark charcoal gray. It often has a streak of bright orange running longitudinally....
TIL that in 1933 the first commercial airliner bombing destroyed United Air Lines Trip 23. No suspect was ever identified and no motive was ever revealed. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that rapper Redman outed MTV Cribs as completely fake and revealed that MTV would routinely rent out mansions to make guests appear wealthier than they were. (hiphophero.com)
TIL Mr. T stopped wearing virtually all his gold, one of his identifying marks, after helping with the cleanup after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He said, "I felt it would be insensitive and disrespectful to the people who lost everything." (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL Malignant Hyperthermia is a deadly reaction to general anesthesia. Most don't know they have the condition until it's too late. It's the reason anesthesiologists always ask you if anyone in the family had a fatal reaction to anesthesia. (medlineplus.gov)
_"Malignant hyperthermia is a severe reaction to particular anesthetic drugs that are often used during surgery and other invasive procedures....