› added 2 years ago

196

TIL "Jelly Babies" were first named "Unclaimed Babies"

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via reddit.com

JDVk TIL that the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight in 1903 “did not create public excitement—if people even knew about them—and the news soon faded”. In fact, they were largely mocked and disregarded until a demonstration in France nearly 5 years later.
QJv6E TIL the Aral Sea - formerly the 4th largest lake on Earth - no longer exists; the rivers that once fed it were diverted in the 1960s for Soviet irrigation projects. The polluted seabed is known today as the Aralkum Desert.
jNdbv TIL that the Nazi's went on an Antarctic expedition to claim it before WW2. When doing airplane surveys they had to drop weight, so they dropped boxes of metal swastikas that were supposed to be dropped all over Antarctica. So there's boxes of swastikas on the Antarctic ocean floor somewhere.
8a8pZ TIL Stephen Hawking provided the voice for his own character in Futurama
Z85Ro TIL Sir Edmund Hillary was the first person to drive overland to the South Pole