› added 7 years ago

97

TIL that while developing Star Trek Spock was originally going to be from Mars, however due to a concern that a Martian landing might take place before the end of the series his home planet was changed.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

gBJL TIL that Bob Barker was trained as a Navy fighter pilot in WW2, but wasn’t sent to a fleet squadron in time to fight. He once said: “I was all ready to go, and when the enemy heard that I was headed for the Pacific, they surrendered. That was the end of World War II.”
xV4jo TIL that before there was a presumption in favor of mothers in (Anglo-American) child custody laws, there was a presumption in favor of fathers. This is because, under the law of the time, children were treated as the father's property/servants.
ANkpg TIL in 1927 while English woman Beatrice Harrison was practicing the cello a nightingale started singing along. This inspired a full song on the BBC together with the bird.
N7088 TIL measuring 4086mi^2, the largest salt pan Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is so flat that rain can’t drain, creating the world’s largest natural mirror. It’s also 5x better for satellite calibration than the surface of the ocean, and an elevation measurement accuracy of 0.8 inches
4Xaow TIL USS Tang (SS-306) was a Balao-class submarine of WW II launched in 1943. Tang sank 33 ships totalling 116,454 tons and was sunk by own torpedo off China in the Taiwan Strait, 24 October 1944.