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18

TIL the Water integrator in the USSR, invented in 1936, used water levels in various chambers to solve inhomogeneous differential equations

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X0XX8 TIL a clown saved 300 children during the deadliest avalanche in history. Only 400 people survived out of around 18,000 in the town of Yungay, Peru. The children were attending a circus and a clown led them to higher ground moments before the avalanche destroyed the entire town.
x6aVB TIL those concrete dividers on highways and streets are called Jersey barriers. Originally invented in the 1950s for use in New Jersey, they were first poured in place but are now pre-made and modular or even plastic. Taller varieties are used as defenses outside US military bases.
4mdN TIL Raiden from Mortal Kombat was inspired by “The Three Storms” from the 1986 movie “Big Trouble in Little China”
LQoEQ TIL that in the year 2000, Norm MacDonald nearly won a million dollars for Paul Newman’s charity for children, but host Regis Philbin talked him out of answering the question so he only won $500,000
56r TIL during WWII, 12000 conscientious objectors served the government without pay. Their many jobs included smokejumping into forest fires, being human test subjects, and working at mental hospitals, where their pacifist approach revolutionized the way mental patients were treated.