› added 6 years ago

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TIL navigating by the stars is still used, the SR-71 (the fastest ever manned airplane) used a computer to automatically track the stars giving it <300m accuracy at Mach 3+. It could even track stars during the day.

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W774B TIL that freight trains often illegally slow down Amtrak trains.
PXNL TIL Comedy Central only agreed to air the word “shit” uncensored in the South Park episode “It Hits the Fan” (the first South Park to do so) if the word was used an absurdly high number of times. The episode had 200 total shits, 162 spoken, 38 written.
YjwG TIL over 22 million chickens are eaten in the US every day.
KAo9 TIL: The woman who accused the Duke Lacrosse players is in jail….for murdering her boyfriend
rRb6e TIL about Marvin Creamer an American college professor who became the first person to sail around the world without any navigational equipment. He relied on the sun, stars and moon to guide him instead of a compass, sextent, clock or any other type of navigational instrument.