› added 3 years ago

154

TIL Colliding with a 1 centimeter paint fleck in orbit will do the damage of a 550 pound object traveling at 60 MPH on Earth

Read more nasa.gov

via reddit.com

b9pLa TIL, in 1948, a man wore 30-pound, 3-toed lead shoes and stomped around a Florida beach in the night. The footprints lead people to believe that a 15-foot tall penguin was roaming their lands. He kept up the prank for 10 years, visiting various beaches. The hoax wasn't revealed until 40 years later.
9wZD7 TIL At the Chicago World's Fair in 1933/34 there was a Midget Village, entirely populated by little people who acted as village guards, police, firefighters, servers and entertainers.
D1bAe TIL After losing her husband and four children to yellow fever, and her job to the great Chicago fire, Mary "Mother" Jones became a labor organizer. She organized a march of working children from Philadelphia to New York, and her speeches provoked workers to organize during the Coal Wars.
AOPo TIL that the strategy guide for Fallout New Vegas is bigger than War and Peace.
69XDY TIL that there are only 20 ancient lakes (defined as carrying water for more than a million years) in the world, with only 3 in North America (Tahoe, Tule, Pingualuk). Nearly all are tectonic (i.e. rift zones) in origin, however 2 are from meteorite craters (Pingualuk in Canada, Bosumtwi in Ghana)