› added 1 year ago

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TIL that if America’s coastal watershed counties were considered an individual country, they would rank number three in GDP globally, behind the U.S. as a whole and China. [economic value of living near water]

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via reddit.com

pJMp TIL Buzz Aldrin received his doctorate from MIT for developing a technique for orbital rendezvous by eye, which he used in Gemini 12 when the radar broke
899X TIL that the doctor who treated U.S. president James A. Garfield after he was fatally wounded by an assassin’s bullet was named Dr. Doctor Willard Bliss, a doctor whose first name was actually “Doctor.”
RY99 TIL of Cocaine Bear, AKA Pablo Eskobear. The bear died in a National Forest in Kentucky in ‘85 after ingesting a portion of 75lbs of coke ($15mil value) that had been dropped by a drug-smuggling, corrupt, fugitive lawyer who had been parachuting with it before falling to his death.
loJYK TIL that President Herbert Hoover and his wife were fluent in Chinese (Mandarin), and would use it to speak with each other in public to prevent eavesdropping.
KYV5Q TIL fruit flies were the first living & "sentient" organism sent into space by humans.