› added 13 years ago

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TIL that Albert Michelson, celebrated for his work in discovering the speed of light, got a free education at the US naval accademy just because he hung out by the door to the Whitehouse and went (initially uninvited) for daily morning walks with the President (Grant).

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jNwMv TIL About Blue Lake Rhino Cave in Washington State that is the 14.5 million year old cast of an early Rhino ancestor created when basalt lava slowly covered the corpse floating upside down in an ancient lake found 300 feet up the side of a cliff.
eXj6 TIL William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States, once said that perhaps the best way to handle former Presidents was to chloroform and ceremonially cremate them when they left office, in order to “fix their place in history and enable the public to pass on to new men”
N7wWN TIL of Ahmed Shah Massoud, an Afghan guerrilla leader who warned the US of an imminent large-scale terrorist attack on their soil. He was assassinated by al-Qaeda two days before 9/11.
5VDx9 TIL the 2006 Ig Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for "The Mosquito" which is a machine used to deter loitering by emitting a high-frequency sound. Some versions are intentionally tuned to be heard primarily by younger people. The sound was also made into a ringtone that couldn't be heard by teachers.
XXOQ TIL Keith Moon hated drum solos and refused to play them in concert. At one show, Townshend and Entwistle decided to spontaneously stop playing to hear Moon’s drum solo. Moon stopped too, shouting “Drum solos are boring!”