› added 7 years ago

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TIL of a Nuclear Weapons Accident that occurred on March 10, 1956. A B-47 Stratojet carrying two plutonium cores was lost over the Mediterranean. Despite an extensive search, the plane and it's cargo was not located and it's fate remains unknown today.

yPkV TIL that Ron Howard has given each of his children the middle name of where they were conceived: Bryce (Dallas), Jocelyn and Paige (Carlyle; Carlyle Hotel, NYC), and Reed (Cross; famous London street. Reed was named after the street because according to Howard, “Volvo isn’t a very good middle name.”
aYd9 TIL there is a board game where players load tiny figures into boxcars and race. Once a player gets to the end it is revealed that the destination is Auschwitz.
Oodoe TIL that Bruce McAllister, a 16 year-old student, in 1963 wrote to 150 authors to settle a dispute with his English teacher about textual symbolism. More than 75 replied, including Ray Bradbury, John Updike, and Saul Bellow. McAllister later became an acclaimed author and literature professor.
XE9Dr TIL that Carfentanyl (think "normal" Fentanyl but on crack) is so potent that it can be used as a chemical weapon. It was most likely used during the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis as an aerosol mist to subdue the Chechen hostage takers.
Y71xx TIL the game of Go is so complex that the number of legal board positions, which has been calculated to be approximately 2.1×10^170, is far greater than the number of atoms in the observable universe, which is estimated to be on the order of 10^80.