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TIL Rock and Roll was originally a euphemism for sex
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6E7xW
TIL of Wally Funk, who became an aviator at 20, and in 1961 volunteered to be part of the Women in Space program. She scored higher on tests than future astronaut John Glenn. The program was cancelled. Today, at 86, she continues to fly, and has a ticket to fly into space with Virgin Galactic.
PY8aO
TIL that when Apollo 11 was returning to Earth, the tracking station at Guam failed. To jury-rig repairs, the station director brought in his 10-year-old son, whose hands were small enough to get inside the faulty machinery and pack it full of grease.
kOa54
TIL that in 1917 a French cargo ship full of high explosives exploded in Halifax Harbour. The explosion was so powerful that an 1100 lbs anchor shaft launched in the explosion flew over the entire town and landed in a field 4 kilometres away.
8e0d8
TIL the most expensive fossil ever sold at auction is a mostly complete skeleton of a Stegosaurus known as Apex which sold for $44.6 million to billionaire Kenneth C. Griffin. It's the largest and most complete known Stegosaurus skeleton, with 254 bones preserved out of approximately 319.
YpKGx
TIL Shakespeare's most published work in his lifetime was not any of his plays, but his poem Venus and Adonis, with ten editions of the poem published before he died. As much as 40% of Shakespeare's works published in his lifetime consisted of his poems alone.