› added 9 years ago

1142

TIL Lord Acton’s famous quote ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ is immediately followed by 'Great men are almost always bad men’.

Read more acton.org

via reddit.com

5mvr TIL the entirety of Ulysses S. Grant’s much-given “perfect speech” was: “I rise only to say that I do not intend to say anything. I thank you for your hearty welcomes and good cheers.”
8JRX TIL a tax return check is actually money that the government borrowed from you - interest free.
dDxb8 TIL A 2007 independent panel found that alcohol is "freely used in crew quarters," where astronauts are quarantined at the Kennedy Space Center in the three days before launch. NASA policy prohibits any drinking in the 12 hours before an astronaut flies a training jet
PYbVL TIL in 2016 researchers at University of Southampton invented glass chips etched with nanostructures that can be used to store up to 360 terabytes of data for billions of years
9Y0GX TIL of the Trans Europe Foot Race where in the 2012 event competitors raced from Italy to Norway. German Peter Partel won with a time of 14 days and 18 hours to complete the 4175 km (2594 mile) course, averaging 283 km (176 miles) per day