Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

dontshoot4301 t1_je5hran wrote

Reply to comment by rageharles in TIL that Chick-fil-A started in 1961, after founder S. Truett Cathy found a fryer that cooked chicken as quickly as a fast food burger. Chick-fil-A licensed the sandwich to 50 restaurants, including Waffle House, until 1967, when the first standalone Chick-fil-A was opened. by jdward01

Literally every corporate story reads like a web of lies. They’re all just fortuitous retelling of made up stories by the founders who believe themselves to be something other than what they are: lucky and persistent.

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notthatbubbly t1_je5fjbu wrote

Reply to TIL that after a flood killed thousands and devastated the economy, California legislators and State employees worked unpaid for a year and a half. by WhatsAMisanthrope

i read about this awhile back in "The West without Water" and one of the most interesting parts of this whole thing to me is this...

"Why so many people were caught off-guard by these floods remains puzzling. It appears that the Native American populations, who had lived in the region for thousands of years, had deeper insights into the weather and hydrology, and they recognized the patterns that result in devastating floods."

its sad to me the knowledge that has been lost about this land since we took over it. the floods sound very similar to the ones that happened this winter.

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kennacethemennace t1_je5dyz8 wrote

Reply to TIL that after a flood killed thousands and devastated the economy, California legislators and State employees worked unpaid for a year and a half. by WhatsAMisanthrope

Not sure about other cities, but you can take an Underground Tour in Old Sacramento. Because of this flood, the city was raised up by like 10 feet or something, and you can take a tour around the old city underneath.

California used to be a giant ancient lake.

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KNHaw t1_je5c9ch wrote

Reply to TIL Early drones were developed during the First World War. These radio controlled planes were primarily for target practice but by 1942 a drone with a built in TV camera was capable of delivering a torpedo to a ship 20 miles from the controller. by jamescookenotthatone

In 1990 I was a fresh college graduate working at Northrop (now Northrop-Grumman) on the B2 bomber when Desert Storm started. There were several engineers who I worked with who suddenly disappeared. When I asked where they had gone, I was told not to ask.

It turns out they'd all worked on a target drone as described above. On the first night of the air war, the Iraqi air defenses detected hundreds of attacking targets and shot them down. But in doing so, they'd turned on their radars, which had been detected by ECM aircraft that had blown them up to pave the way for the real wave of air strikes.

That first wave was training drones, designed to be shot down, originally for training but here as a feint tactic. All those engineers who'd gone missing were in Saudi Arabia supporting this because they'd all previously worked on these crappy, low end target drones Northrop had made as a sideline.

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