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TIL there is a 100-year-old organization dedicated to bringing the metric system to the US and tomorrow starts “Metric Week”

Read more us-metric.org

via ift.tt

opvE TIL a Wikipedia admin once deleted the main page. This resulted in a Wikipedia guidance essay, “Don’t delete the main page.”
AN9Go TIL Firefighters use wetting agents to make water wetter. The chemicals reduce the surface tension of plain water so it’s easier to spread and better soaks into objects, which is why it’s known as “wet water.
kLg TIL there’s a bridge in Norway built from Leonardo De Vinci’s drawings 500 years earlier.
NEjP TIL when Samuel Adams received a female slave as a wedding gift, he insisted that “a slave can not live in my house; if she comes she must be free.” He was able to free her after years of writing emancipation papers, and treated her as an equal family member throughout that time.
9kJB TIL during the Chernobyl, three engineers volunteered to dive into a pool of radioactive hydrogen peroxide with no working flashlights and open a pipe to stop the reactor from exploding. They succeeded.