› added 9 years ago

111

TIL Alan Shepard peed in his spacesuit moments before becoming the first American in space

Read more americaspace.com

via reddit.com

xNMw TIL That while Mandarin Has Twice as Many Native Speakers as English, English Has Twice as Many Total Speakers.
nedLY TIL Of A PREHISTORIC SPERM WHALE, The creature had a far more powerful bite with a nightmarish set of teeth, Twelve to 13 million years ago, it likely dined on smaller whales. It WAS DUBBED LIVYATAN MELVILLEI, giving Moby-Dick’s creator a posthumous shout-out.
EgVW7 TIL of the Ben Franklin Effect, "a psychological phenomenon in which people like someone more after doing a favor for them". The opposite is also true, people come to dislike others to whom they have done wrong
yVLyp TIL that the concept of curvature in space-time giving rise to matter and gravitation was predicted in 1870 by William Kingdon Clifford (although not rigorously proving it like Einstein managed)
DxZJ TIL that if a kangaroo is chased by an attacker, it will run into a body of water and hold the attacker under water. In 2009, a kangaroo almost drowned a dog after it was chased into a creek. The dogs owner was then attacked when he went to the dogs rescue, receiving a deep gash to his abdomen.