› added 5 years ago

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TIL of Story Musgrave, the most formally educated astronaut with six academic degrees, a consultant to both Disney's Imagineering group and Applied Minds in California, and is the only astronaut to fly on all 5 Space Shuttles.

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oReMo TIL: Aimo Koivunen was the first documented case of a soldier overdosing on meth during combat. During WW2, feeling tied he took his squad's entire supply of Army issued Pervitin (meth). He then entered a state of delirium, hit a land mine, and subsisted on pine buds and one bird for a week.
4Xkla TIL that the Holy Roman state of Hesse-Kessel became a "mercenary state" renting out its army to other major powers. The state maintained strict neutrality, to the point that it would rent out soldiers to both sides of a conflict and the Hessian soldiers would end up fighting each other.
kOmee TIL that when US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara visited South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, he didn't know that Vietnamese was a tonal language. So, he thought that he was saying "Long live a free Vietnam!" but actually said "Vietnam, go to sleep!"
OoG46 TIL The largest group of bad science adherents in the world are those who utilize traditional Chinese medicine
ADOVo TIL The Grapes of Wrath was allowed in Soviet theaters to show the "cruel" nature of capitalism but quickly withdrawn as Soviets were amazed that even poor people in America owned cars