Post * X0QZD — Curious Curator

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TIL Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was an Indian-American astrophysicist who discovered the Chandrasekhar limit—the maximum mass (about 1.4 solar masses) a white dwarf star can have before collapsing into a neutron star or black hole. He won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics.

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r76M TIL there’s a line of 70 foot long concrete arrows that bisects the country longitudinally all the way from San Francisco to New York City. They’re from the pre-digital age and were installed by the Federal gov’t in 1924 with 50’ tall towers with rotating gas-powered lights to aid lost pilots.

7rKO7 TIL that in 1946, the University of Tennessee forfeited a basketball game against Duquesne because they had one black player in Chuck Cooper on the team. Tennessee's coach asked Duquesne's coach to not play Cooper "unless he had to", but Duquesne refused. Duquesne won 2-0 due to Tennessee's forfeit.

6EVv8 TIL that ejection at Mach 3+ from the SR71 at attitude wasn't just possible, but less dangerous than ejecting at Mach 1 at lower altitudes

4Xmbo TIL George Eastman founder of the Kodak and helped to bring the use of roll film into the mainstream, suffered from a degenerative disease in his final two years. Eastman died by suicide with a gunshot through the heart. His suicide note read, "To my friends, my work is done – Why wait? GE."

oB6v7 TIL Ivan VI became Emperor of Russia at only two months old. His reign was short-lived, as his cousin, Elizabeth overthrew him, and placed his family in prison. Ivan would go on to spend the rest of his life in prison before being executed. His siblings were than placed under permanent house arrest.