› added 4 years ago

167

TIL that the theory of gravitationally-assisted space travel - which enabled NASA’s Voyager and other missions to explore the solar system - was invented by a summer intern at JPL in 1961. He and his revolutionary idea were initially ignored, and he was not offered a job at JPL or NASA.

Read more bbc.co.uk

via reddit.com

Ooep4 TIL writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ray Bradbury, actors Christopher Reeve and Linda Hamilton, and astronaut Alan Shepard are all descendants of Mary Bradbury, a woman tried and sentenced in the Salem Witch Trials who escaped death and lived to age 85.
J1LD1 TIL that the modern standard keyboard layout, QWERTY, was NOT designed to slow typists down but rather to prevent the mechanical typewriters from jamming.
Nwxe TIL that Girl Scouts originally made the cookies they sold in their own kitchens, and that the recipe for those cookies is posted on the official Girl Scout website.
e0ZjL TIL about Patsy Mink, a law school graduate who was prohibited from taking the bar exam because she was a married woman. In 1964, she became the first woman of color elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she authored Title IX, which prohibits gender discrimination in education.
nW70r TIL The Oxford English Dictionary took a massive 71 years to complete, from 1857 until 1928