› added 11 minutes ago

TIL John Glenn asked NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson to check the orbital equations by hand before his 1962 Friendship 7 mission, the first American orbital spaceflight.

Read more nasa.gov

via reddit.com

KvWQ TIL in 2005, a student in England made a 1 million pixel webpage and put up the space for sale at $1 per pixel. He did this in order to pay for college and he was successful, selling out in less than 6 months.
OGmPg TIL about Chang Yŏngsil, born a slave, he rose to become an accomplished scientist under Sejong the Great—but was later exiled after a royal palanquin he was ordered to build broke while carrying the king.
VBdGZ TIL if a watermelon is beginning to foam it has a chance of exploding.
WvA4 TIL That after watching Star Wars for the first time in 1977, James Cameron quit his job as a truck driver to enter the film industry.
Y789B TIL North American colonial powers paid bounties to people who turned in scalps of killed Native Americans. Colonists’ use of scalping against Native American people likely accelerated the practice.