› added 5 years ago

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TIL Work at Bell Labs resulted in 9 Nobel Prizes & 4 Turing Awards. Bell laid the first transoceanic phone cable, mapped dark matter, created radio astronomy, the transistor, laser, solar cell, information theory, Unix, C & C++, error detection, cell phones, optical tweezers, electron lithography.

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69GpQ TIL that the 25 day long 1990 Strangeways Prison Riot was the longest ever British prison riot, started in protest against overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, guard brutality, and the misuse of drugs.
AaLx TIL that Albert Einstein was asked to be the president of Israel, which he declined.
vPe48 TIL comic book writer Mark Millar auctioned off the right to name the hero of his series Nemesis. He donated the winning bid, $8,500, to his brother's charity for special needs kids.
4XaGX TIL in a traffic stop, Arizona officials seized illegal drugs with a street value of over $1M, then got a search warrant for the driver's property which included a former KFC restaurant. In the KFC floor, they found a hole leading to a 590 ft tunnel where drugs were funneled from the Mexican side.
DQoGP TIL n 1953, during the Korean War, the U.S. government launched "Operation Moolah". The goal was to get North Korean pilots to defect and bring their planes with them. In exchange, the pilot would receive $50,000 cash and asylum in a non-Communist country. No pilots defected though.