Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

Lillithandrosemary t1_j9nlnha wrote

Reply to comment by Monticellite in TIL to finish writing The Hunchback of Notre Dame within an impossible deadline of 6 months, Victor Hugo locked his clothes away, making him unable to go outside and procrastinate which forced him to do anything but finish writing his book. by Old_Sport7920

This says he tried courting her, then she dated his son for a few months after rejecting him and his poem to her. What is more surprising is that she turned him down.

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theartfulcodger t1_j9nkqbv wrote

Reply to TIL that Gert Frobe, the actor who portrayed Auric Goldfinger in James Bond, was a former Nazi. Because of this, Goldfinger was banned in Israel until a Jewish man informed the Israeli Embassy that Frobe had hidden his mother and him from the Nazis. by NYstate

Some might remember that in The Longest Day, Gert was the fat, mule-riding German soldier fetching water, who was knocked on his ass by the first salvo of the Allies’ naval bombardment at dawn on D-Day.

I worked with him on a children’s tv series, The Little Vampire; delightful man & a skilled vaudeville-style comedian.

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coffeeinvenice t1_j9nglt0 wrote

Reply to TIL The US military once accidentally killed over 6,000 sheep with nerve gas when a weapons test went wrong by Cranyx

For those of us old enough to remember it, the 1968 Dugway Sheep Incident had a significant impact on public consciousness and pop culture in the late 1960s. It happened at the height of the Vietnam War when there was rising public doubt in the US on what the Pentagon was doing and what it was spending money on.

The Dugway Sheep Incident may have been the basis for The Andromeda Strain, a 1969 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton that made it to the 1969 New York Times Best Seller list. In the novel, a team of scientists at a secret underground government laboratory investigate the outbreak of a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism in Arizona. Images of dead people in the 1971 movie were/are reminiscent of fields of dead sheep from the Dugway incident.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o9Iwtp0xcg

In 1971, Charlton Heston stared in a post-apocalyptic science-fiction film called The Omega Man, later remade into I Am Legend. In the 1971 film, a Sino-Soviet border conflict escalates into full-scale war in which biological warfare destroys most of the human race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av_1t7LLRFk

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PMD16 t1_j9nekts wrote

Reply to TIL the worst snowstorm in the history of Los Angeles occurred in 1949 when up to two feet of snow covered the city for three days as it reached its lowest temperature ever recorded, 28 degrees Fahrenheit by SappyGilmore

All these “that’s not real cold!” schmucks have never lived in LA.

None of the houses here have any kind of real insulation. This cold snap coming through this weekend is going to be very nasty, very cold, and very expensive for a lot of people. Nat gas prices were already sky high.

I expect to see stories of hypothermia from the homeless and someone dying of carbon monoxide poison trying to hear their house with the stove because the heat doesn’t work

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opiate_lifer t1_j9nebcz wrote

Reply to comment by PM_ME_YOUR_FERNET in TIL about Jamaican Ginger AKA "Jake" which was popular during Prohibition for its high alcohol content. Unfortunately it caused paralysis leading to a distinctive walk called the Jake Walk or the Jake Dance. by HeavyMetalOverbite

The human body can handle acetone, its produced in small amounts during normal metabolic processes.

Methanol however can blind or kill you in only ml amounts.

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Sdog1981 t1_j9ne01e wrote

Reply to comment by Thecna2 in TIL that Gert Frobe, the actor who portrayed Auric Goldfinger in James Bond, was a former Nazi. Because of this, Goldfinger was banned in Israel until a Jewish man informed the Israeli Embassy that Frobe had hidden his mother and him from the Nazis. by NYstate

Be left the party in 1937 2 years before the war started. So he must have been one of the few Germans that knew things were heading toward disaster.

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