› added 3 years ago

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TIL in the first test of ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, the connection crashed after the first two of five characters were transmitted

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MjoV TIL a partnership between US and Chinese space agencies is impossible - the 2011 spending bill made any scientific activity involving NASA and the Chinese illegal.
R7r19 TIL the world's oldest printed book is 'The Diamond Sutra' and it was created in 868 A.D. by a man named Wang Jie. At the bottom-right corner he printed: “Reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents.”
O9JY TIL: After the financial crises of 2008, the people of Iceland elected twenty-five non-political citizens to write a new constitution to free Iceland from the exaggerated power of international finance. The Icelanders could witness and comment on the constitution as it was being drafted online.
0wlpy TIL that American surgeon William Beaumont, the "Father of Gastric Physiology", researched human digestion by putting pieces of food on a string and poking them through an old gunshot wound in his handyman's stomach. He pulled it out on regular intervals to check on how well it had been digested.
dKxj TIL that the clocks in Grand Central Station (NY) run a minute fast to help passengers make their trains.