› added 7 years ago

90

TIL France had a "proto-internet" called Minitel, to which half the population had access. It allowed for buying plane tickets, shopping, 24-hr news, message boards & adult chat services. It was used to coordinate a national strike in 1986. Some believe it hindered the internet's adoption in France.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

dZWE TIL that the Challenger disaster delayed the Hubble Telescope launch for years, and the Hubble had to be stored in a clean room, powered-on, at the cost of $6,000,000/mo
oRprW TIL After Colonel Shaw was killed, Confederates buried him in a mass grave to insult his leadership of Black soldiers. When Union troops tried to recover his body, his father wrote, "We would not have his body removed from where it rests with his brave soldiers."
xmB0 TIL that the parents of the Columbine shooters were sued by some of the victims’ families for 2.5 million dollars and that this cost was covered by their Homeowners Insurance.
b4AZ TIL before filming Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, director Alfonso Cuaron had the three lead actors write an essay about their respective characters. Emma Watson wrote a 16 page essay, Daniel Radcliffe wrote a 1 page summary, and Rupert Grint never turned his in.
KW5a TIL that the French word for wooden shoe, ‘sabot’ is the probable root of the word sabotage: and refers to the tactic by early Dutch unionists of throwing sabots into the gears of factory or farm machinery, effectively stopping work until the equipment could be repaired.