› added 8 years ago

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TIL that Masao Yoshida, the plant manager at Fukushima in 2011, disobeyed orders to stop pumping seawater into the nuclear reactor. This stopped a greater disaster that would have affected millions of lives.

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GYgMJ TIL the Krupp company, presently known for kitchen appliances, is a 400 year old German Merchant Dynasty, and was a weapons manufacturer from the Thirty Years' War until the end of WWII.
OOR4 TIL The “X” in X-Ray was just a random letter because Wilhelm Roentgen didn’t know what it was.
Wd99 TIL there exist people who can locate objects through echolocation, making it possible for blind people to ride bicycles through traffic.
b9mWN TIL that after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Lithuanian basketball team couldn't afford to participate in the 1992 Olympics, so the Grateful Dead funded the team's expenses, and the team wore tie-dye uniforms.
woroM TIL the EU is working on a "Digital Product Passport" so consumers can track where a product comes from, what it's made from, how to repair it and how to dispose of it. This includes clothing, chemicals and electronics.