› added 13 years ago

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TIL that Muslim astronauts have struggled with the issue of how to pray from space. When orbiting the Earth, it’s impossible to pray facing Mecca because its direction constantly changes.

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epg9k TIL: There was a plot to assassinate Jimmy Carter in 1979. The assassins names were Raymond Lee Harvey and his partner Oswald.
yVVj8 TIL the iconic Einstein-sticking-his-tongue-out photo was his annoyed reaction to paparazzi goading him to smile on his 72nd birthday. It achieved cult status mostly because Einstein himself asked for a cropped version, ordered many prints and proceeded to send them to friends.
QNXZd TIL after noticing a decline in the Christmas Island pipistrelle, permission was given by the Australian govt. to capture and breed wild specimens. In Aug 2009, scientists only found one instance of the bat through echolocation after four weeks. It later went silent that same month.
nexnW TIL on May 24, 1996, a drive-in theater in Canada was destroyed by a tornado when the theater was scheduled to show the 1996 disaster movie ‘Twister’. In ‘Twister,’ a scene parallels the exact event of the theater destruction by a tornado during a showing of ‘The Shining.’
nbyr TIL the phrase ‘duck’, used in cricket to mean a score of zero, is short for 'duck’s egg’, referring to the shape of the number. 'Goose-egg’ is prevalent in U.S English while the French equivalent 'l'oeuf’ (egg) is the origin of 'love’, meaning zero in tennis.