› added 7 years ago

1073

Of all the bodies in our solar system, the sun is probably the one we want to give the widest berth. It gushes radiation, and even though its surface is the coolest part of the star, it burns at about 9,940°F, hot enough to incinerate just about any material. As such, there are no plans to send a manned mission in its direction anytime soon (Mars is much more interesting, anyway), but it can't hurt to figure out at what distance a person would want to turn back. You can get surprisingly close.

0dGpj TIL The shortest war in history was between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896. It lasted only 38 minutes. It was all because Zanzibari Prince Khālid ibn Barghash refused to accept the British Empire’s preferred successor.
QJlGp TIL when Robert E Lee and the Confederate army surrendered, Union soldiers saluted them and gave them rations (the confederate soldiers were starving). Normally victorious armies would taunt defeated ones, but Ulysses S Grant respected the Confederates too much and ordered that they be treated well.
NX47E TIL as of March 2022, the most sampled hip hop track (a hip hop song sampled by another hip hop song) of all time is “La Di Da Di” (1985) by Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick. It's been sampled over 1000 times by such artists as Naughty by Nature, The Notorious B.I.G., Snoop Dogg, Mos Def.
69YY TIL there is a theory that human consciousness is a quantum process which, among other things, helps to explain psychedelic altered states and near death experiences.
D14PY TIL that Milton Hershey kept his employees working during the Great Depression by having them construct buildings in Hershey, PA including a school, arena and hotel. When a steam shovel was brought in for construction, Hershey told his foreman to get rid of the shovel and hire 40 men instead.