Post * 7rvVL — Curious Curator

› added 5 years ago

182

TIL that in 1930 on the news bulletin the BBC reported that "There is no news" and instead played piano music

Read more

1Z5W TIL In 1967, A 26 year old Australian Nurse used borrowed money to buy a plane which she flew into the Outback to eradicate Polio. She died at age 35 of cancer, and is remembered as one of the Great Women Pilots of the 20th Century

x6jk0 TIL In 1930, Bernard Lyot invented the coronagraph that allowed total solar eclipses to be recreated at will. It is essentially a telescope with a small disk in the focal plane to exactly cover the disk of the sun like the moon would

Zpwm4 TIL that Andrew Watson was the first professional black football player, accepting a paid position at Bootle FC from 1887, and prior to that he was also the first black international player, having captained the (amateur) Scotland national team in 1881

xVEKw TIL about the Thach Weave, a dogfighting maneuver developed in WW2 by the pilot John Thach. It allowed slower American planes to defeat their faster, more agile Japanese adversaries. It is still applicable today.

nW6Qr TIL a woman named Chante Mallard hit an unhoused man named Gregory Biggs, lodging him in her windshield, alive. She drove home and parked in her garage where she let him suffer for days before dying. She was only caught months later because she talked about it at a party.