› added 6 years ago

617

TIL The Fisher Pen Co. patented a sealed, pressurised ink cartridge for the anti-gravity pen in 1966. The "thixotropic” ink is close to a solid before being stirred & as it's stirred by the ball going through the point, it becomes very thin which allows it to flow in the gravity-free vacuum of space

Read more wired.co.uk

via reddit.com

JxeQ TIL that in 1981, a Turkish man shot Pope John Paul II four times but didn’t kill him. After the Pope recovered, he visited the assassin in prison forgave him. The assassin was pardoned at the Pope’s request and 33 years after his crime, he visited Vatican City and laid flowers on the Pope’s tomb.
jNnMa TIL Massachusetts man Richard Noll bought two scratch-offs in order to break a $100 bill to buy lunch and won $10 million from one of the tickets. Mitesh Patel, who sold him the winning ticket, will receive a $50,000 bonus.
DRlg TIL the designer of the Porsche 911, Butzi Porsche, was kicked out of industrial design school in his first year for apparent lack of talent. When he went to work for his father at Porsche, the company’s design director rejected his ideas, so he had the 911 prototype built by an outside contractor.
D1p6D TIL During WW2, Britain shipped most of its gold reserves and foreign securities to Canada in crates labeled 'Fish'. They were stored for years in an office building in downtown Montreal, where about 5000 people worked throughout the war without having a clue about what was hidden in their basement.
wLVGM TIL Sesame Workshop stopped the distribution of a successful Sundance short film called ‘Ernest and Bertram’ that portrayed Bert and Ernie being outed to the public as gay, resulting in Ernie committing suicide.