› added 8 years ago

579

TIL the President of the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network lied about being on the 78th floor of the south WTC during the attack. She was actually in Spain during 9/11.

Read more cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com

via reddit.com

KYb0Q TIL that hookworm infection “played a major role in the South’s lagging behind the rest of the country.”
x6bnb TIL Astronauts of the first Apollo crew, Apollo 7, had to wait until 2008 to be honored with the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. All other Apollo astronauts received the award almost four decades earlier. Apollo 7 was deemed to be a "101% success"
aG5L TIL: In 2002 a man in Florida going through a messy divorce went fishing, caught a sailfish, and put his wedding ring on the fishes nose. Two years later, he caught the same fish again with the wedding ring still attached.
0dMLM TIL that the classic “devils horns” ears that Doberman dogs are known for is actually a result of a practice called “cropping”, where the flappy part of an animals ear is surgically removed.
Eal7 TIL of HitchBOT, a robot designed to rely on humans to get from place to place. It successfully hitched rides across Canada and Germany before attempting to thumb its way from Boston to San Francisco. The experiment ended in Philadelphia when vandals left HitchBOT decapitated on a street corner.