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TIL that James Webb ran NASA in the 1960’s and pushed for a balance between space flight and science. He wrote in 1965 that a major space telescope should be pursued.

Read more jwst.nasa.gov

via reddit.com

4X1eX TIL At a radiology conference in 1974, Lee Rogers, a physician who had mistakenly swallowed a soda can tab during a basketball game, addressed the hazard to the medical community, which lead to a redesign of a non-removable tab that reduced untold amounts of litter and injury to humans and wildlife.
8argL TIL that we don't know how the great French mathematician Adrien-Marie Legendre really looked like, because the only surviving portrait of him is an angry face in a caricaturist's work. For 200 years, the portrait of a French politician was wrongly attributed to him and used in old textbooks.
Q1Nd TIL that there’s a variation of The Three Wise Monkeys, the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” monkeys covering their eyes, ears, and mouth(???). The variation contains a fourth monkey who covers its genitals to represent “do no evil”
7rMjM TIL that when Mt. Everest was found to be the tallest mountain on Earth at 29000ft (the estimate at the time), an extra 2 feet were added on top of the number because they feared if it was too round of a number, the public would think they had picked an arbitrary number.
XELRE TIL Emperor Meiji of Japan (1852-1912) was the last Japanese emperor to wear a full beard