› added 2 years ago

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TIL that the "Wright" in the name of today's billion-dollar aviation company Curtiss-Wright is the literally the same business the Wright Brothers started after they achieved the first airplane flight (albeit after a couple of mergers).

Read more curtisswright.com

via reddit.com

Bgdak TIL: Cholesterol extracted from Carrots was the basis for the discovery of "Liquid Crystals" due to their two melting point states. The ability to change the polarization of light through the states led to the creation of the LCD screens used today.
Ev5V TIL that a professor in Japan found that lightning strikes can double the size and amount of mushrooms in the wild. He decided to research this based on how consistently the myth of this phenomenon was found throughout the world. They suspect the electricity powers an enzyme that spurs growth.
W7w4 TIL only 3 of the 12 people on board the Enola Gay knew the purpose of their mission to Hiroshima
E1087 TIL that the American flag deployed on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission was inserted only seven inches deep and was placed about 27 feet from the Eagle landing craft. As a result, it was blown over by the blast of the rocket exhaust during the takeoff back to Earth.
x6PNw TIL that Diet Soda began with the 1949 launch of La Casera in Madrid, Spain, using cyclamate. In 1969, an experiment at UW-Madison found that a cyclamate combination caused bladder cancer in laboratory rats, and was accepted by consumers and doctors as a cause of cancer in humans.