› added 8 years ago

88

TIL Sunita Williams, Navy pilot and NASA astronaut, was the first person to run a marathon from space, running the Boston Marathon on the International Space Station’s treadmill. Her fellow astronauts fed her oranges during the race.

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g6gy TIL that during the depression when the flour companies learned that poor Americans were sewing flour bags together to make clothing they started packing their flour in pretty patterned packing material to encourage potential dress makers to buy their flour
xA8w TIL a 90 year old woman with no heirs signed a contract with a 47 year old lawyer giving him her apartment upon her death, but he had to pay her a monthly allowance until she died. She outlived him and his widow continued the payments. She received approximately double the value of the apartment.
5GGk TIL: The first woman was accepted to medical school by accident. The issue was up to vote by the male students, with the stipulation that if one student objected, she would be rejected. They thought it was so ludicrous that they believed it to be a joke, and voted unanimously to accept her.
Y7LRG TIL that the pound sign £ is a stylised L, from the Latin "libra pondo" (a Roman unit of weight). The reason why it's called a "pound sterling" was because it was originally defined as the value of a pound of sterling silver.
p87dQ TIL that in the 1500s a Greek Protestant adventurer named Iacob Heraclid went around Europe pretending to be royalty and managed to make himself Prince of Moldavia for two years before being killed.