Effects of Alcohol on Human Brain:

Facts About Wind Turbines:

No wind turbine can capture more than 59.3% of the kinetic energy in wind, regardless of its design. The “Betz limit” was first derived over 100 years ago. 

In China, a building is constructed with embedded wind turbines to provide its own power.

Wind turbines can kill bats without impact, they die because their lungs explode from a drop in air pressure.

In 2011, an 89-year-old veteran developed a bladeless bird-friendly wind turbine.

Almost all modern aircraft are fitted with a small wind turbine that auto-deploys in the event of a dual engine failure. It powers basic hydraulics and electronics required for the flight controls.

The Bahrain World Trade Center is the 1st skyscraper in the world to integrate wind turbines into its design. Each turbine is 29m in diameter and their capacity is 675kw of wind power. That’s enough to provide lighting for about 300 homes, 258 hospitals, 17 industrial plants, and 33 car engines.

There are flying wind turbines that harness energy. 

The largest urban wind turbine is in Cleveland, Ohio at the Lincoln Electric world headquarters. It measures 443 feet tall and is capable of producing 2.5-megawatts of electrical energy.

Germany has one of the most successful renewable energy sectors in the world, with more than 23,000 wind turbines and 1.4 million solar PV systems in use. The country aims to have renewable national electricity of 40 to 45% by 2025, 55 to 60% by 2035, and 80% by 2050.

Wind Turbine Syndrome can affect someone who has seen media coverage of a wind turbine without being near a turbine.

If 10% of all the global energy demand was to be provided by wind turbines, in the regions of land where farms are installed temperature would rise by 1 °C.

There’s a wind turbine so large you could fit two professional baseball fields inside the area it sweeps.

 The Invelox wind turbine can generate effective power from as little as 1mph of wind by funneling the wind towards a turbine on the ground.

1700 Dutch households raised EUR 1.3 million in just thirteen hours to buy shares in a wind turbine, setting a new world record for crowdfunding.

Math Tricks - Great to Know..!!

Are you ready to give your mathematics skills a boost? These simple math tricks can help you perform calculations more quickly and easily. They also come in handy if you want to impress your teacher, parents, or friends.

Multiplying by 6

If you multiply 6 by an even number, the answer will end with the same digit. The number in the tens place will be half of the number in the ones place.

Example: 6 x 4 = 24

The Answer Is 2

1. Think of a number.
2. Multiply it by 3.
3. Add 6.
4. Divide this number by 3.
5. Subtract the number from Step 1 from the answer in Step 4.

The answer is 2.

Same Three Digit Number

1. Think of any three-digit number in which each of the digits is the same. Examples include 333, 666, 777, 999.
2. Add up the digits.
3. Divide the three digit number by the answer in Step 2.

The answer is 37.

Six Digits Become Three

1. Take any three-digit number and write it twice to make a six digit number. Examples include 371371 or 552552.
2. Divide the number by 7.
3. Divide it by 11.
4. Divide it by 13. (The order in which you do the division is unimportant.)

The answer is the three digit number

Examples: 371371 gives you 371 or 552552 gives you 552.

1. A related trick is to take any three-digit number.
2. Multiply it by 7, 11, and 13.

The result will be a six digit number that repeats the three-digit number.

Example: 456 becomes 456456.

The 11 Rule

This is a quick way to multiply two digit numbers by 11 in your head.

1. Separate the two digits in your mind.
2. Add the two digits together.
3. Place the number from Step 2 between the two digits. If the number from Step 2 is greater than 9, put the ones digit in the space and carry the tens digit.

Examples: 72 x 11 = 792

57 x 11 = 5 _ 7, but 5 + 7 = 12, so put 2 in the space and add the 1 to the 5 to get 627.

Memorizing Pi

To remember the first seven digits of pi, count the number of letters in each word of the sentence:

"How I wish I could calculate pi."

This gives 3.141592

Contains the Digits 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8

1. Select a number from 1 to 6.
2. Multiply the number by 9.
3. Multiply it by 111.
4. Multiply it by 1001.
5. Divide the answer by 7.

The number will contain the digits 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 8. 

Example: The number 6 yields the answer 714285.

Multiple Large Numbers in Your Head

To easily multiply two double-digit numbers, use their distance from 100 to simplify the math:

1. Subtract each number from 100.
2. Add these values together.
3. 100 minus this number is the first part of the answer.
4. Multiply the digits from Step 1 to get the second part of the answer.

Super Simple Divisibility Rules

You've got 210 pieces of pizza and want to know whether or not you can split them evenly within your group. Rather than whip out the calculator, use these simple shortcuts to do the math in your head:

• Divisible by 2 if the last digit is a multiple of 2 (210).
• Divisible by 3 if the sum of the digits is divisible by 3 (522 because the digits add up to 9, which is divisible by 3).
• Divisible by 4 if the last two digits are divisible by 4 (2540 because 40 is divisible by 4).
• Divisible by 5 if the last digit is 0 or 5 (9905).
• Divisible by 6 if it passes the rules for both 2 and 3 (408).
• Divisible by 9 if the sum of the digits is divisible by 9 (6390 since 6 + 3 + 9 + 0 = 18, which is divisible by 9).
• Divisible by 10 if the number ends in a 0 (8910).
• Divisible by 12 if the rules for divisibility by 3 and 4 apply.

Finger Multiplication Tables

Everyone knows you can count on your fingers. Did you realize you can use them for multiplication? A simple way to do the "9" multiplication table is to place both hands in front of you with fingers and thumbs extended. To multiply 9 by a number, fold down that number of the finger, counting from the left.

Examples: To multiply 9 by 5, fold down the fifth finger from the left. Count fingers on either side of the "fold" to get the answer. In this case, the answer is 45.

To multiply 9 times 6, fold down the sixth finger, giving an answer of 54.

Example: The 210 slices of pizza may be evenly distributed into groups of 2, 3, 6, 10.

Facts About Artificial Intelligence:

A scientist named Carl Djerassi not only developed the birth control pill, but also wrote over 1200 papers on different subjects, and wrote one of the first Artificial Intelligence programs in 1965. A program called DENDRAL, which could automatically discover unknown forms of medications.

Artificial Intelligence researchers put a worm’s mind in a Lego body and it reacted to its environments without any programming by only mapping the Neurons.

Google’s Artificial Intelligence Bot says the purpose of living is ‘to live forever’.

In January 2015, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and dozens of Artificial Intelligence experts signed an open letter on AI, calling for research on the societal impacts and urging researchers not to create something which cannot be controlled.

Billionaire Dmitry Itskov created a non-profit organization called the 2045 Initiative, where they want to make people immortal by adding human intelligence into artificial bodies by the year 2045.

Elon Musk of Tesla Motors on being asked to comment on Artificial Intelligence said that it was humans greatest existential threat and was like summoning a Demon. 

MASSIVE is a software package used to generate thousands of actors with their own Artificial Intelligence. It was used to generate the battle scenes in the Lord of the Rings films.

Artificial Intelligence has crushed all human records in the puzzle game “2048,” achieving a high score of 839,732 and beating the game in only 973 moves without using any undo's.

CAPTCHA is short for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

Joseph Weizenbaum, one of the founding fathers of Artificial Intelligence, later became one of it’s leading critics when he found his secretary getting very emotionally involved with ELIZA, a chatbot that he himself programmed.

The 1983 Automonopoli was a computer version of Monopoly marketed as the first to have an Artificial Intelligence strong enough to compete against human players.

‘Roko’s Basilisk’ is a hypothetical, all-powerful Artificial Intelligence from the future which may retroactively punish those who had not helped to bring about its existence and that by simply knowing about the Basilisk (e.g. by reading this sentence) opens you up to punishment. 

University of Washington students created an Artificial Intelligence program to detect “that’s what she said” jokes.

Stanford’s free Artificial Intelligence class uses Google Plus Hangouts to help them teach more effectively.

As far back as 2006, NASA was using Artificial Intelligence to perform evolutionary processes that created an optimally designed space antenna after millions of iterations in only 10 hours.

The Mechanical Turk was an automaton chess machine constructed in 1770 that defeated both Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon. In reality it turned out to be an elaborate hoax, still, it lasted 50 years, and people believed that this historic “robot” demonstrated Artificial Intelligence.

There is such a thing called genetic algorithm. And this algorithm can be applied to bots or Artificial intelligence for it to learn over time to avoid obstacles. This is something that is based on how evolution works by surviving and adapting.

Facebook is developing an Artificial Intelligence design to understand user emotions, identify objects in photos, and predict user actions.

Google has a Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab with an actual quantum computer.

In 1966 a group of M.I.T. students used a computer in the Artificial Intelligence lab to determine the fastest route through the entire New York City subway system, which they took during their Spring Break.

There is a “Singularity Institute” dedicated to the creation of safe Artificial Intelligence.

Artificial intelligence systems known as ‘robo farmers’ could soon grow crops and tend livestock around Britain while their human controllers need never set foot in a field again.

The Number of Continents on Earth Is More Complicated Than You Think..!!

A continent is typically defined as a very large landmass, surrounded on all sides (or nearly so) by water, and containing a number of nation-states. However, when it comes to the number of continents on earth, experts don't always agree. Depending on the criteria used, there may be five, six, or seven continents. Sounds confusing, right? Here's how it all sorts out.

Defining a Continent

The "Glossary of Geology," which is published by the American Geosciences Institute, defines a continent as “one of the Earth’s major land masses, including both dry land and continental shelves." Other characteristics of a continent include:

• Areas of land that are elevated in relation to the surrounding ocean floor
• A variety of rock formations, including  igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary 
• A crust that is thicker than those of the surrounding oceanic crusts. For example, the continental crust may vary in thickness from about 18 to 28 miles in depth, whereas oceanic crust is usually about 4 miles thick. 
• Clearly defined boundaries

This last characteristic is the least well defined, according to the Geological Society of America, leading to confusion among experts as to how many continents there are. What's more, there is no global governing body that has established a consensus definition.

How Many Continents Are There?

Using the criteria defined above, many geologists say there are six continents: Africa, Antarctica, Australia, North and South America, and Eurasia. If you went to school in the United States, chances are you were taught that there are seven continents: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.

In many parts of Europe, however, students are taught that there are only six continents, and teachers count North and South America as one continent.

Why the difference? From a geological perspective, Europe and Asia are one large landmass. Dividing them into two separate continents is more of a geopolitical consideration because Russia occupies so much of the Asian continent and historically has been politically isolated from the powers of Western Europe, such as Great Britain, Germany, and France.

Recently, some geologists have begun arguing that room should be made for a "new" continent called Zealandia. According to this theory, this landmass lies off the eastern coast of Australia. New Zealand and a few minor islands are the only peaks above water; the remaining 94 percent is submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean.

Other Ways to Count Landmasses

Geographers divide the planet into regions, and generally not continents, for ease of study. The Official Listing of Countries by Region divides the world into eight regions: Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, North America, Central America and the Caribbean, South America, Africa, and Australia and Oceania.

You can also divide the earth's major landmasses into tectonic plates, which are large slabs of solid rock. These slabs consist of both continental and oceanic crusts and are separated by fault lines. There are 15 tectonic plates in total, seven of which are roughly 10 million square miles or more in size. Not surprisingly, these roughly correspond to the shape of the continents that lie atop them.

Interesting Facts About Bitcoins:

A Norwegian student spent $27 on Bitcoins, forgot about them, and a few years later realized they were worth $886K. 

The founder of Bitcoin is someone called Satoshi Nakamoto. Nobody knows who he is, what his real name is or where he lives. He holds 1 million Bitcoins, equivalent to $1.1 billion.

A man named James Howells threw away a hard drive containing 7,500 Bitcoin. The hard drive, currently under mountains of trash in a Wales landfill is worth approximately $15 million.

The amount of electricity running the Bitcoin Network could power 1.3 million homes.

A man bought 2 pizzas in 2010 using 10,000 Bitcoins, worth over 10 million dollars today.

In 2013, two FBI agents posed as quarreling lovers to distract Ross William Ulbricht (aka Dread Pirate Roberts) with the goal of copying data from Ulbricht’s computer, before it could be removed or hidden, used to run Silk Road, an online black market using Bitcoin as its primary currency. 

The first recipient of a Bitcoin transaction was using his amassed fortune from the cryptocurrency to fund the cryogenic preservation of his body. He died in 2014 from ALS. 

The largest Bitcoin transaction was made back in 2013 with a value of $147Mil, today’s market value is $174Mil representing 1.6% of all Bitcoins now in circulation, and the transaction was tagged “sh*t Load of Money!”

There is a bot that acts as a random darknet shopper. With a budget of $100 of Bitcoins, it randomly purchases items and displays them in an art exhibition.

US Corporations are buying Bitcoin to quickly resolve Ransomware Attacks.

Bitcoin is illegal in Kyrgyzstan, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Bangladesh.

Genesis Mining sent a Bitcoin into the stratosphere and made what they claim is the first Bitcoin transaction in outer space.

The FBI maintains their own Bitcoin wallet that consists of seized Bitcoins.

Hackers turn security camera DVRs into Bitcoin miners.

The Assassination Market is located in the “Dark Web” where any party can place a bet using Bitcoin on the date of death of a given individual, and collect a payoff if they “guess” the date accurately.

Economist Milton Friedman predicted Bitcoins 10 years before they were invented.

Brea mall in Brea has a Zenbox Bitcoin ATM.

Mozilla did A/B testing last year showing that simply offering a Bitcoin option reduced the number of donations to the org overall by 7.5% on average.

The Winklevoss twins (best known for their lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg) own a 1% of all Bitcoins in existence and started investing in them when they were only $9 per coin.

Interesting Facts About Motorcycles:

Harley Davidson motorcycles have a failure rate over twice that of the top three motorcycle manufacturers in the world.

In 2003 Dodge built and sold nine motorcycles with a viper V-10 engine called the Dodge Tomahawk.

Keanu Reeves used his % profit from The Matrix to buy a motorcycle for all of the movie’s stuntmen.

The rarest motorcycle in the world was found behind a brick wall in Chicago and has engine technologies well ahead of its time. The “Traub” is still running.

Motorcyclists are almost 30X more likely to die than other motorists.

The first responders to accidents in high-speed motorcycle races in Northern Ireland are motorcycle doctors. They travel at speeds upwards of 180mph to get to the scene.

It is legal in California to drive a motorcycle between two cars in their lane (lane splitting) and only 53% of state residents know that it is legal. 

The city of Medellin, Colombia reduced motorcycle assassinations by 39% when it banned male passengers from riding on the back of motorbikes.

In 2000 the major motorcycle companies of the world reached a gentlemen’s agreement to end a speed war of one-upmanship to try to make the worlds fastest production bike, as they feared speeds would escalate to extremely dangerous speeds before it would end. A limit of 186 mph was agreed.

In Indiana, Motorcycles at a red stop light only have to stop for 120 seconds, and then they can treat the stop light as if it were a stop sign and proceed through the intersection cautiously.

There is a long gap in time between the invention of the motorcycle and the first backflip on a motorcycle, and then there is the invention of flight and us landing on the moon.

In 1935 German engineers created a streamlined motorcycle with the engine in the front wheel. There was likely only one made and its current location is unknown.

A guy stranded in the desert dismantled his broken down car and made a working motorcycle out of it.

In South Dakota, there is an annual motorcycle rally that averages almost 10 deaths, 400 arrests, 300 emergency room visits, and tens of millions in revenue for local government.

Motorcycle helmets were invented by the neurosurgeon who attended Lawrence of Arabia after his fatal motorcycle crash.

The machine largely regarded as the world’s first motorcycle, built in 1867, and had a twist-grip throttle – an idea that has not been bettered since.

The Oakland Police Department spent around $15,000 to modify the tailpipes of their Harley motorcycles to make them loud.

In Motorcycle Road Racing (i.e. Isle of Man TT) the paramedics ride superbikes too, following the racers, to be as fast as possible on the crash scene.

Harley Davidson tried unsuccessfully to trademark the sound of their motorcycles. During litigation, a Yamaha spokesman countered, “There’s no difference between the sound their engine makes and the sound our engine makes. The pistons go up and down. They all sound the same.”

Some police motorcycles in the 1920’s had a jail sidecar.

That's True..!!

Spices Kill Bacteria:

In the hopes of finding ways to control pathogens in food, researchers have discovered that spices kill bacteria. Several studies have indicated that common spices, such as garlic, clove, and cinnamon, may be particularly effective against certain strains of E. coli bacteria.

Spices Kill Bacteria

In a Kansas State University study, scientists tested more than 23 spices in three scenarios: an artificial laboratory medium, uncooked hamburger meat, and uncooked salami.

Initial results indicated that clove had the highest inhibitory effect on the E. coli in the hamburger while garlic had the highest inhibitory effect in the laboratory medium.

But what about taste? Scientists admitted that finding the right mix between the taste of the food and the amounts of spices necessary to inhibit the pathogens was problematic. The amounts of the spices used ranged from a low of one percent to a high of ten percent. Researchers hope to further study these interactions and perhaps develop recommendations for spice levels both for manufacturers and consumers.

Scientists also cautioned that the use of spices is not a substitute for the proper handling of food. While the spices used were able to greatly curtail the amounts of E. coli in the meat products, they did not eliminate the pathogen entirely, thus the necessity of proper cooking methods. Meats should be cooked to approximately 160 degrees Fahrenheit and until the juices run clear.

Counters and other items that come in contact with uncooked meat should be thoroughly washed, preferably with soap, hot water, and a light bleach solution.

Cinnamon Kills Bacteria

Cinnamon is such a flavorful and seemingly innocuous spice. Who would ever think that it could be deadly? Researchers at Kansas State University have also discovered that cinnamon kills Escherichia coli O157:H7 bacteria.

In the studies, apple juice samples were tainted with approximately one million E. coliO157:H7 bacteria. About a teaspoon of cinnamon was added and the concoction was left to stand for three days. When researchers tested the juice samples it was discovered that 99.5 percent of the bacteria had been destroyed. It was also discovered that if common preservatives such as sodium benzoate or potassium sorbate were added to the mixture, the levels of remaining bacteria were almost undetectable.

Researchers believe that these studies demonstrate that cinnamon can be effectively used to control bacteria in unpasteurized juices and may one day replace preservatives in foods. They are hopeful that cinnamon may be as effective in controlling other pathogens that cause food-borne illness such as Salmonella and Campylobacter.

Previous studies have shown that cinnamon can also control microbes in meat. It is most effective, however, against pathogens in liquids. In liquids, the pathogens cannot be absorbed by fats (as they are in meat) and thus are easier to destroy. Currently, the best way to protect against E. coli infection is to take preventative measures. This includes avoiding both unpasteurized juices and milk, cooking raw meats to an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit, and washing your hands after handling raw meat.

Spices and Other Health Benefits

Adding certain spices to your food can also have positive metabolic benefits. Spices such as rosemary, oregano, cinnamon, turmeric, black pepper, cloves, garlic powder, and paprika increase antioxidant activity in the blood and decrease insulin response. In addition, Penn State researchers found that adding these types of spices to meals high in fat decreases triglyceride response by about 30 percent. High triglyceride levels are associated with heart disease.

In the study, the researchers compared the effects of eating high-fat foods with spices added to that of high-fat foods without spices. The group that consumed the spicy food had lower insulin and triglyceride responses to their meal. Along with the positive health benefits of consuming the meals with spices, the participants reported no negative gastrointestinal problems.

The researchers contend that antioxidant spices like the ones in the study could be used to reduce oxidative stress. Oxidative stress has been linked to the development of chronic diseases such as arthritis, heart disease, and diabetes.

Interesting Facts About Hacking:

The hacker Kevin Mitnick was kept in solitary confinement for 8 months because “law enforcement told the judge that he could somehow dial into the NORAD modem via a payphone from prison and communicate with the modem by whistling to launch nuclear missiles.”

According to the FBI Director, the FBI is having a hard time filling positions to help tackle cyber crimes because a lot of the nation’s top computer programmers and hacking gurus are also fond of marijuana.

A hacker who, while serving five years for hacking, signed up for a prison IT class, and successfully hacked into the prison’s mainframe.

Two men were brought up on federal hacking charges when they exploited a bug in video poker machines and won half a million dollars. His lawyer argued, “All these guys did is simply push a sequence of buttons that they were legally entitled to push.” The case was dismissed.

Lenovo Computers is partially owned by the Chinese government and their computers come preloaded with secret backdoor access. As a result MI6, the CIA and other spy agencies have banned their use.

After getting fired in 1996, Timothy Lloyd, an 11-year employee of OMEGA, planted a hacking “time bomb” within the firm’s computer systems that deleted the firm’s main operating software two weeks after his lay-off, making the firm lose over $10 million and fire 80 employees.

In the 1980s, the BBC televised a live demonstration of email. Prior to transmission, a studio guest overheard a crew member saying the email account password and phoned a friendly hacker. Once on air, the presenter logged in and was met with a poem about hacking and insecure passwords.

While hacking a Fortune 500 company, 16-year-old Sean Parker was unable to log out after his father unplugged and confiscated his keyboard. Because his IP address was exposed, FBI agents tracked him down and arrested him.

The first person that was charged with hacking a computer did not go to jail due to there being no specific criminal offense at the time.

In 2007 a researcher from IBM was able to gain complete control of an American nuclear power plant by hacking it over the internet.

LinkedIn was sued for hacking their users’ email addresses and spamming their contact lists with LinkedIn invites.

A 15-year old named Jonathan James once hacked NASA and caused a 21-day shutdown of their computers. James was federally prosecuted after hacking United states department of defense computers and became the first juvenile incarcerated for cybercrime in the United States.

Journalists from News of the World hacked the cell phone of Milly Dowler, a 13-year old girl who was abducted and murdered in 2002, and read her phone messages and listened to her voicemail, giving her family, friends and the police false hope she was still alive.

The hacking in the movie Matrix was performed using real tools.

There was a hacking group in the ’90s that testified to the USA Congress that they could shut down the entire Internet in 30 minutes.

In 2015, Cyber Hackers stole approximately $1 billion from over 100 banks in one of the largest bank heists ever.

Google build a backdoor for the FBI to access all of their customer’s email.

The 19th-century telegraph network has also been nicknamed “Victorian Internet”. People used it for hacking, dating, fraud, and spam.

“Hackers Wanted”, a film about hacking and the free flow of information, was never officially released due to the conflict in the team. It was then leaked on BitTorrent.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was expelled from the University of Colorado after hacking into the school’s computer system.

In 2008 hackers induced seizures in epilepsy sufferers by hacking into an epileptic support forum and leaving flashing animation screens.

The structure of the giant hacking ring Red October was exposed by a man attempting to ping the entire Internet.

Microsoft offered Virender Raika, son of a laborer from Kurukshetra (India) 763,390 USD annual package for his extraordinary anti-hacking skills.

In an early example of ‘hacking’ pirate radio broadcasters in the 1920’s would use their own transmitters to send messages for free.

The GPS satellites were programmed to introduce timing jitters into the signals until it was abolished by a Presidential decree in 2000.

Facts About PayPal:

In 2013 PayPal accidentally credited $92 quadrillion to a Pennsylvania man.

When Paypal was started they gave $20 to everyone that made an account and $20 for every person they referred. This cost them 60-70 million dollars but they had 100,000 customers, in the month PayPal went online.

Elon Musk was ousted from Paypal when he wanted to move everything from Unix to Microsoft.

Paypal was voted one of the 10 worst business ideas of 1999.

Around 20 years ago, PayPal was originally called ‘X’.

Venture capitalist Peter Thiel co-founded PayPal to wipe out currency inflation worldwide.

A restriction by Paypal was necessitated some years back because many Nigerians used the payment platform to defraud many foreign buyers on eBay.

You can give money via Paypal to North Korea but not to Wikileaks.

Elon Musk had to borrow money to pay rent after he spent all $180 million from PayPal.

PayPal made eBay customer destroy his $2,500 violin and gave the owner nothing.

ProtonMail, a service that provides encrypted email messaging, had its PayPal account frozen when it received mass funding through Indiegogo because PayPal doubted the legality of the encryption.

72% of US online shoppers have a PayPal account.

Chad Hurley, one of the founders of Youtube, helped design the original PayPal logo.

Facts About Torpedoes:

Not all torpedoes are designed to pierce hulls then explode, some detonate below the target ship without making contact. This creates a gas bubble that causes the ship to be thrust out of the water then dropped back into the resulting void, often breaking the vessel in half and sinking it. 

Winston Churchill, along with many of the Royal Navy’s highest-ranking men, came very close to death after the ship they were on was fired at by a U-boat with 3 torpedoes. All three struck the hull of the ship, but all failed to explode.

Coffin Torpedoes were invented in the 1800s to prevent grave robberies. They fired if the coffin was opened.

A Russian named Vasili Arkhipov avoided causing WWIII after refusing his captain’s orders to launch nuclear torpedoes at US warships during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. 2 of the 3 officers on board wanted to fire the missile, however, a unanimous decision was required.

1930’s starlet Hedy Lamarr invented a new technology to stop Nazi’s from jamming Navy torpedoes, but the idea was rejected until 1962 and implemented during the Cold War. Her frequency hopping technology is also the basis for modern Bluetooth.

During WWII, Japan developed manned suicide torpedoes named Kaiten. Early designs allowed the pilot to escape before hitting the target, but nobody seemed to use the feature. This ability was later traded for a locked hatch and a self-destruct control.

WWI ships were painted with flashy Razzle Dazzle designs to make it more difficult to hit them with torpedoes.

The Confederate States of America created explosives disguised as pieces of coal. Saboteurs mixed the coal torpedoes with regular coal and when workers shoveled them into the steam engines they detonated, damaging or destroying the ship. 

The Company that built the Torpedoes used by the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor was destroyed when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

From 1941 to September 1943 American subs were plagued with faulty torpedoes that had a failure rate near 70%. Sub captains started relying on their deck guns instead until the problems were corrected.

During the first two years of WWII, the majority of the torpedoes fired ran too deep, exploded too early, did not explode on contact or even circled back to sink the submarine. 

The warships called destroyers today were originally torpedo boat destroyers since their sole purpose was protecting powerful but vulnerable capital ships from torpedoes. 

The biggest maritime disaster is believed to be the sinking of MV Wilhelm Gustloff in 1945. An estimated 9,400 out of 10,500 of the passengers perished after the ship was hit by three Soviet torpedoes, six times more than the famous Titanic disaster.

The torpedoes which sank the Belgrano in 1982 were of a design first deployed more than a decade before World War II.