› added 12 years ago

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TIL in 1999 Harvard physicist Lene Hau was able to slow light down to 37 miles an hour, and was later able to stop light completely.

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LkVP9 TIL that Don Rosa (Scrooge McDuck comic book author and illustrator) is almost unknown in the US while having a near rockstar status in Europe
YOr7 TIL James Earl Jones was a functional mute until high school, briefly studied pre-med in college and was a US Army Ranger during the Korean War.
OoGxR TIL that Wilhelm Röntgen didn't know what kind of rays he discovered in 1895, and called them X-Strahlen (X-rays, "unknown rays"). They were later named röntgen rays in a lot of languages, but stuck as X-rays in english
ojZW TIL of the Angel of Nanjing; a selfless man who has patrolled the Yangtze River Bridge since 2003, saving people who wish to commit suicide and counselling them back to health, he has saved over 300 lives to this day.
Vj5Z TIL that in 1990 the Providence Journal tested five candidates for mayor with the city-management computer game SimCity. Buddy Cianci, the most successful, won election that year.