› added 5 years ago

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TIL about the trials for Rocket Mail. Since 1810 inventors have tried to deliver mail via artillery, and later rockets. In 1959 the US navy fired a cruise missile filled with mail from a submarine to a Naval base in Florida. Despite enthousiasm by the Postmaster General it was a one time thing.

Read more smithsonianmag.com

via reddit.com

ADWxg TIL that in 2013, police in the Maldives arrested a coconut for loitering near a polling station for the presidential election. Locals feared the coconut may have been imbued with a black magic spell to influence the election as there was a Surah written on it.
oKlL TIL in early 2015, the unmanned spacecraft, “Dawn”, is scheduled to arrive at Ceres, a dwarf planet and the largest object in our solar system’s asteroid belt.
vPppK TIL that “Tick-Tock the Crocodile” ‘s iconic music from 1953’s Peter Pan was composed with lyrics in 1939. Production of the movie was shelved due to WW2 and the lyrics cut from the final product. Its composer committed suicide in 1942.
14nO TIL that since 1980 about 40% of the top honours in men’s long distance international athletics have gone to Kenyans from a single tribe, the Kalenjin.
wLG57 TIL That Wild Bil Hickok and his family were very anti-slavery. Hickok’s father moved his family from Vermont to Maine to Homer (now Troy Grove), Illinois. There the family’s small farm served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.