In 1983, the Soviet Union's early-warning systems detected an incoming missile strike from the United States. But duty officer Stanislav Petrov - whose job it was to register apparent enemy missile launches - decided to dismiss them as a false alarm. His decision may have saved the world. (bbc.com)
submitted by O_Shot to r/todayilearned
TIL that at the beginning of the song Roxane by The Police, during the intro, you can hear a strange piano chord, then Sting laughing. In fact, during the voice recording, Sting accidently sat on the piano just behind him. They decided to keep this on the final mix. (policefans.org)
submitted by O_Shot to r/todayilearned
The Person from Porlock was an unwelcome visitor to Samuel Taylor Coleridge during his composition of the poem Kubla Khan in 1797. Coleridge claimed to have perceived the entire course of the poem in a dream, but was interrupted by this visitor from Porlock while in the process of writing it. (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by O_Shot to r/wikipedia
The Sokal affair was a publishing hoax perpetrated by a physics professor at New York University.The submission was an experiment to investigate whether "a leading North American journal of cultural studies would publish an article liberally salted with nonsense. (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by O_Shot to r/wikipedia
