› added 10 months ago

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TIL an innovative satellite launched in 1962, Telstar 1, was accidentally damaged beyond use by Cold War nuclear bombs. After transmitting the first TV and phone signals and images from space, it broke down due to damage from Soviet & American nuclear tests, but still orbits the earth today.

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GNpQ TIL during the Vietnam War, Soldiers asked Bicycle Playing Cards for packs of cards containing nothing but the famous Ace of Spades, As the superstitious Viet Cong were frighted and often fled at the sight of the card.
1aZlD TIL that the Italian city of Monza banned goldfish in bowls because the shape of the bowl gives the fish "a distorted sense of reality"
x6E6w TIL that the story of NASA spending millions on a space pen is a lie.The pen was invented by a man called Paul Fisher who sold it to NASA for $6 a pen.
b6Ova TIL that William and Ellen Craft, two people enslaved in the American South, fled to the North in the 1840s, with Ellen (who was more light-skinned than William) posing as William's male master. They escaped to the U.K., where they raised five children, and eventually moved back to the U.S. in 1868.
vAv8 TIL During the filming of the climactic flood scene in Noah’s Ark (1928), the great volume of water used was so overwhelming (600,000 gallons) that three extras drowned, one was so badly injured that his leg needed to be amputated, and a number suffered broken limbs and other serious injuries