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18

TIL Nuclear-powered aircraft were researched by both the USA and Soviet Union, but were ultimately impractical compared to submarines and ICBMs

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D154D TIL Nikola Tesla planned to make school children smarter and healthier by saturating them unconsciously with electricity, wiring the walls of a schoolroom with high-voltage lines. The plan was provisionally approved by then superintendent of New York City schools, William H. Maxwell.
6868 TIL that after a year of people using NYC’s bikeshare program, riders have gone 14,700,000 mi. and none of them has died.
8ae0G TIL Winston Churchill Avenue is the only road to get from Spain to Gibraltar, and drivers must pass straight through runway 09/27 at Gibraltar International Airport. Similar to a railroad crossing, the road is temporarily closed when airplanes are coming to land.
8e9BL TIL that the first Japanese person to be sent to space was Toyohiro Akiyama. Known as "The Space Antihero", Akiyama was not a trained astronaut, scientist nor engineer and spent his time in space craving cigarettes.
ZpVaD TIL that Canadian sci-fi author Peter Watts made his book Blindsight available under a Creative Commons license which tripled its sales