› added 5 years ago

57

TIL that in 1945, a US Army Air Force B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building. The crash severed an elevator's cables, causing it to plummet 75 stories. The elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived the elevator fall, and holds the record for the longest elevator fall survived.

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R7756 TIL Harvard’s first black faculty member was a dentist. Dr. George Franklin Grant joined the Dept of mechanical dentistry in 1871. Also an inventor, he patented the wooden golf tee. Previously, golfers carried around buckets of sand, placing their balls on little piles as they went.
7GJp TIL that 57 years of fusion research is equal to one fifth of Wall Street executive bonuses this year ($144 Billion). AND as much as 72 days of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. That is how under funded energy research is in the US.
9YGrX TIL Animals in Japan can only stay at the shelter for 5 days before being put to rest if no one has adopted them.
wLymM TIL that Noshir Gowandia, one of the prinicipal designers of the B-2 bomber is serving time for espionage.
R8KQ TIL when a chinchilla is very happy it will jump and twist mid-air, sometimes bouncing off the walls. This is called “popcorning.”