› added 10 years ago

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TIL that the Soviet Union did not admit that a reactor had exploded at Chernobyl until nearly 3 days after radiation from the disaster set off alarms at a nuclear plant in Sweden 1000 km away.

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8e0pa TIL about the Davis Gun, a WW1 era attempt to create a recoilless gun by having two guns fire forwards and backwards simultaneously. A third gun was sometimes attached to the top
xVY8k TIL about the United States Metric Board, established in 1975 by an act of Congress to facilitate the transfer of the US to the metric system, the conversion was to be voluntary, which was not enough to effect the change, and it was disbanded by President Reagan in 1982.
4r45 TIL Elvis Presley once asked his limo driver, “Do you own this limo or do you work for the company?” He responded, “I work for the company.” Elvis said “Well, you own it now.” The limo driver’s tip was the limo.
p8mj8 TIL In 2012, a tourist in Iceland left her group to change her clothes. When she returned to the group, they did not recognise her. The group began searching for a missing person. She joined the search party for herself.
EgrDx TIL That in addition to "The Golden Rule" there's also "The Golden Mean" or golden middle way - The desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency.