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202

TIL the shortest recorded war lasted only 45 minutes!

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b9rd4 TIL that the term ZIP is an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan. It was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently and quickly (zipping along) when senders use the code in the postal address.
mxMBM TIL the term factoid originally meant a piece of information that was accepted as a fact but wasn't true, or a made up fact that is accepted as true due to it appearing in print.
OoGEa TIL: the US government has paid out 7 billion dollars in settlements to people poisoned by the US nuclear industry
6EEaJ Yes, it’s true that most jetliners are certified for automatic landings, called “autolands” in pilot-speak. But in practice they are rare. Fewer than 1 percent of landings are performed automatically, and the fine print of setting up and managing one of these landings is something I could talk about all day. If it were as easy as pressing a button, I wouldn’t need to practice them twice a year in the simulator or periodically review those tabbed, highlighted pages in my manuals. In a lot of respects, automatic landings are more work-intensive than those performed by hand. The technology is there if you need it for that foggy arrival in Buenos Aires with the visibility sitting at zero, but it’s anything but simple.
NeDE TIL a German abbot wrote a book on magic in 1499. A century later, it was discovered to be one of the first books on cryptography, carefully encrypted disguised as a book on magic.