› added 6 years ago

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TIL that computer science was actually promoted to women in the 1960s - on the premise that the planning and attention to detail involved in programming is akin to that of planning a dinner party.

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7rbwL TIL upon sending his son, who worried about his ability to hold his own amid experienced and eminent statesmen and diplomats, to the negotiation that would lead to the Peace of Westphalia, a Swedish statesman famously told him:"Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?"
KQYw TIL Leó Szilárd, physicist directly responsible for the creation of the Manhattan Project, wanted to have a test explosion that could be witnessed by Japanese observers for them to surrender while sparing lives
XDmr TIL in 1973, a Libyan passenger jet having navigational problems wandered into Israeli airspace. When 2 Israeli F-4s intercepted the jet and instructed the crew to land, they refused because of bad Libyan-Israeli relations at the time. The jet was then shot down, killing 108 people.
b9kg0 TIL at high enough speeds an aircraft can use it's own shockwaves to generate a considerable amount of additional lift. This phenomenon is called compression lift and has only been demonstrated to two aircraft models.
1ajOV TIL that the 1912 presidential election, the Socialist candidate -Eugene V.Debs- received six percent of the popular vote which was the highest ever for a Socialist or Communist or any leftist in U.S. history.