› added 5 years ago

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TIL Alan Turing, WW2 codebreaker and father of modern computer science, was also a world-class distance runner of his time. He ran a 2:46 marathon in 1949 (2:36 won an olympic gold in 1948). His local running club discovered him when he overtook them repeatedly while out running alone for relaxation

p80aQ TIL that we never see blue skies from the moon not because the space people/machines only take photos at night but because the moon never had one due to the lack of an atmosphere.
waeP TIL Lacrosse, as originally played by Native Americans, fielded teams from 100 to 1,000 men, with goals 500 yards to 6 miles apart, with games lasting several days, played sunup to sundown. These games tended to become huge mobs of players swarming the ball and slowly moving it across the field.
GxP1 TIL that while in office JFK regularly took painkillers, barbiturates and amphetamines prescribed by the well known celebrity doctor “Dr Feelgood”
rN4L1 TIL of George Remus, rumored to be the inspiration for The Great Gatsby - He was a pharmacist, prohibition bootlegger, lawyer, and is known for pioneering the temporary insanity defense, which later helped his acquittal following the shooting of his wife, Imogene
NG78 TIL as a PhD student, American mathematician George Bernard Dantzig showed up late to a statistics class and mistook two famous unsolved statistics problems as homework. He solved them and turned them in a week later, believing his assignment was overdue.