› added 11 years ago

254

TIL: All aircraft carriers in history (save two) have their bridges on the starboard side due to a near universal tendency of pilots to veer left in an emergency.

JW1V TIL Daisy from The Great Gatsby is based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s girlfriend, Ginevra King. She broke up with him saying “Poor boys shouldn’t think of marrying rich girls”. The last time they met she asked if someone in Gatsby was based on her. Fitzgerald replied “Which bitch do you think you are?”
1KnP TIL the official definition of a second is 9,192,631,770 cycles of the Cesium atoms resonant frequency, and the NIST-F1 cesium atomic clock can produce a frequency so precise that its time error per day is about 0.03 nanoseconds, meaning the clock would lose one second in 100 million years
8akk4 TIL of Soviet spy, Gevork Vartanian, who stopped the Nazi assassination of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill at the age of 19; 400 German agents were arrested/killed because of his efforts, and the assassination was ultimately prevented.
R78n1 TIL That children who grow up drinking low-fat milk are significantly more likely to suffer from obesity as they grow older (as compared to children who drink whole milk).
OGyZL TIL that about 100,000 people died each year in India due to the collapse of vulture populations. Vultures were crucial to the ecosystem & their near extinction due to accidental poisoning extended the presence of animal carcasses in the local environment, increasing rabies & reducing water quality.