› added 6 years ago

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TIL - When Mount Everest was measured in 1854 the exact value was 29,000 feet. Despite being accurate, Andrew Waugh published the value as 29,002 feet to avoid the public assuming it was merely a rounded estimate. Thus he was known as "the first man to put 2 feet on top of Everest".

BrjDe TIL that K2 has no local name: the British Great Trigonometrical Survey of India tried to use local names for mountains where possible, but discovered that K2 was so isolated that no one had a name for it
wor87 TIL that Iris Cummings, an American swimmer and pilot born December 21st 1920, is the last surviving athlete who competed at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. She earned her pilot's license in 1940. She was a flight instructor for almost 30 years and is now retired.
0wKwp TIL that Robert Wang, inventor of the Instant Pot reads every review of his product. When one customer commented that it would be nice if it could make yogurt, he created a new model that could do that, then sent the reviewer the new model as a thank you. He still reads every review.
WkpGN TIL: George Lucas traded 2.5% of "Star Wars" ticket sales with Steven Spielberg for 2.5 % of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" sales. Lucas did this because he was not sure that Star Wars would be profitable. Spielberg ended up making $40 Million from Star Wars.
WkAQ8 TIL Charles Havlat was the last American soldier killed in WW2 just minutes after German and Allied officers had negotiated a ceasefire and a few hours before the German army’s surrender.