› added 6 years ago

89

TIL American English spellings like "color" and "center" were first published by Noah Webster as an effort to simplify what he thought were unnecessarily complex spelling rules.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

NQy8 TIL Finland has the most heavy metal bands per capita in the world. While Sweden and Norway have only 27 heavy metal bands per 100.000 inhabitants, Finland boasts double as much, 54 bands per 100.000.
5Y8gR TIL The Aztecs did not build Aztec Ruins National Monument, a World Heritage Site in the American state of New Mexico; it was actually built by the Pueblo natives. The name is a misattribution from 19th century settlers.
4XPv5 TIL about an alarm clock which was stuck in between the walls at a Pennsylvania home, was going off every night at 7.50 EDT, for 13 years.
698bY TIL after cancellation of test flight on Dec 31, 1980 for technical issues, the first prototype of LearAvia Lear Fan aircraft made its maiden flight on Jan 1, 1981, officially recorded by sympathetic British govt officials as Dec 32, 1980 in order to secure govt funding that expired at end of 1980.
J5KQ TIL In 1964, Gary Flandromwas tasked with studying techniques for exploring the outer planets. He discovered that a rare alignment of the outer planets would occur in the late 70’s and came up with the Planetary Grand Tour which allowed for the Voyager program to happen.