› added 7 months ago

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TIL that Elizabeth “Plinky” Toepperwein was America’s only female professional trapshooter and beat Annie Oakley's accuracy record—she peeled potatoes with bullets and shot cigarettes out of her husband’s mouth.

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D11Op “At any given moment, there are 1,800 thunderstorms happening somewhere on Earth. This amounts to 16 million storms each year! We know the cloud conditions that produce lightning, but we cannot forecast the location or time of a lightning strike.”
wLOAP When 50,000 of Mark Rober's 3 million YouTube subscribers participated in a basic coding challenge, the data all pointed to what Rober has dubbed the Super Mario Effect. The YouTube star and former NASA engineer describes how this data-backed mindset for life gamification has stuck with him along his journey, and how it impacts the ways he helps (or tricks) his viewers into learning science, engineering, and design. Mark Rober has made a career out of engineering, entertainment, and education. After completing degrees in mechanical engineering from Brigham Young University and the University of Southern California, Rober joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2004. In his nine years as a NASA engineer, seven of which were on the Mars rover Curiosity team, Rober worked on both the Descent Stage (the jetpack that lowered the Rover to the surface) and some hardware on the Rover top deck for collecting samples. In 2011, Rober’s iPad-based Halloween costume helped launch both his creative costume company, Digital Dudz, and his YouTube channel, which now boasts 3 million subscribers and 400 million views. His videos focus on creative ideas and science- and engineering-based pranks and activities. Rober is a regular guest on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". Today, he does research and development work for a large technology company in Northern California, where he lives with his wife and son.
BrEWb TIL When Teddy Roosevelt led the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill, the gun he carried was a .38 Colt revolver salvaged from the wreck of the USS Maine. The USS Maine exploded outside Havana in early 1898 and the pistol was given to him by his brother-in-law.
6EVNX TIL that Harry Truman’s official memorial isn’t a physical one like the Lincoln Memorial, but rather is a federal scholarship for grad school worth $30,000 that’s given out to college juniors interested in public service.
jNyOv TIL about LT. Gail Halvorsen, who dropped confections out of his airplane to German children during the Berlin Airlift, earning him the nickname "Candy Bomber"