› added 5 years ago

569

TIL Nasa got the idea of a rocket countdown from a 1929 Fritz Lang Film.

Read more atlasobscura.com

via reddit.com

YpeKG TIL Muggsy Bogues the shortest player ever to play in the NBA history, 5 ft 3 in (1.60 m). Bogues played point guard for four teams during his 14-season career in the NBA.
8elmL TIL Australia’s Aboriginal inhabitants, once thought isolated from the rest of the world for 45,000 years, have genetic markers showing mass migration from India 4,000 years ago, which also coincides with the first appearance of dingos on the island-continent
W77b9 TIL 18th century French chemist, physicist, and inventor Louis-Sebastien Lenormand is credited with the first witnessed descent with a parachute, and also with coining the term "parachute," which literally means "against a fall."
wWkM TIL Oklahoma declared watermelon a vegetable and made it their official state vegetable
WgpL TIL Most Iranian women don’t wear niqabs. The government once considered them to be a “badge of backwardness.”