› added 7 years ago

96

TIL that when the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, Canada caught fire. The Soviets tried to take out the fire themselves and not call the fire department. When the fire department arrived the Soviets would not let them in. Eventually, they let them in only after the Soviets removed sensitive documents.

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ZpKAR TIL about Belphegor's prime: 1000000000000066600000000000001
QxA6 TIL that newgrange in Ireland is older than both Stonehenge and the pyramids in Giza. On the morning of the winter solstice every year the rising sun shines down the entrance passageway and illuminates the burial chamber at the end. This only happens for a few minutes, once a year.
97WD TIL That a US professor proposed the idea that a president’s nuclear launch codes should be kept in a capsule surgically implanted in the chest of an assistant. Extracting the codes would require him to hack open the assistant’s chest and be responsible for one life before killing millions more.
Y76ZB TIL that the author of "Goodnight Moon" died following a routine operation at age 42, and did not live to see the success of her book. She bequeathed the royalties to Albert Clarke, the nine-year-old son of her neighbor, who squandered the millions the book earned him.
D19YD TIL in 2016 An Artificial Intelligence program called AlphaGo successfully beat the worlds best ranked players in the ancient game of Go. A feat previously thought impossible due to the element of human intuition required.