› added 9 years ago

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TIL a partnership between US and Chinese space agencies is impossible - the 2011 spending bill made any scientific activity involving NASA and the Chinese illegal.

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ADQ47 TIL about "It's not the fart that kills you, it's the smell," a quote by Norwegian rally car driver Petter Solberg. In Norwegian, fart means speed and smell means impact. The expression has become a meme.
XEaRX TIL that New Zealand was undiscovered and completely devoid of human beings no more than 800 years ago.
d8PXr TIL that Colin Campbell Ross, an Australian, was executed in 1922 for the murder of a child (a case which was sensationalised by Keith - father of Rupert - Murdoch's newspaper). After the original evidence was tested for DNA in 1998, the case returned to court, and he was finally pardoned in 2008
nWNgG TIL Sylvester Graham was a 19th century antebellum American reformer who spoke out in favor of healthy living, including avoiding meats, alcohol, and too much sexual activity. He created a bland cracker, the Graham cracker, to stop the need for sexual intimacy
lJl5 TIL there was once a human mannequin so convincingly still that he was stabbed by someone in an attempt to prove he was actually a dummy.