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TIL the 1970s musical sitcom 'The Partridge Family' was inspired by the real-life 1960s family band, The Cowsills, who sang the hit song 'The Rain, The Park, And Other Things', a.k.a. "The Flower Girl".

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dPW8 TIL: The Secret of NIMH was inspired by a real experiment with rats at the National Institute of Mental Health which suggests society will always collapse when it gets too big.
v1WXK Flying a helicopter on Mars is so damn hard but NASA made it possible. For the first flight, the helicopter took off, climbed to about 10 feet (3 meters) above the ground, hovered in the air briefly, completed a turn, and then landed. It was a major milestone: the very first powered flight in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, and, in fact, the first such flight in any world beyond Earth. Being able to fly a helicopter or drone on Mars is very important as they can cover 24 kilometers in an hour. By the way, Curiosity took nine years to travel less than 25 kilometers.
k9M7 TIL - the navy is now teaching sailors Celestial Navigation as a response to potential cyber attacks to ship navigation systems.
e6l4 TIL that Jason Lee, the main actor in ‘My Name Is Earl’ used to be a professional skateboarder and is credited with inventing the '360 flip’
m4Xy TIL the first time American troops fought under a foreign commander was during WW1. Despite being ordered to withdraw by their own command, they remained with their Australian and British allies, utilising combined arms to result in the very successful Battle of Hamel