› added 13 years ago

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TIL in 1178, several monks reported seeing fire and sparks shooting off of the Moon. Today, scientists believe the monks witnessed the impact event that made Giordano Bruno crater.

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pY6pG TIL that James Doohan, the actor who played Scotty on Star Trek, came up with the sound and tone of the Klingon Language for Star Trek The Motion Picture. A linguist, Marc Okrand, later used those lines created by Doohan to turn it into an actual language.
LkMpm TIL that Jurassic Park's visual effects were so groundbreaking to filmmakers that it inspired Peter Jackson to begin work on Lord of the Rings, George Lucas to start on the Star Wars prequels, and Stanley Kubrick to invest in his pet project, A.I (Artificial Intelligence).
LQ6er TIL that the great majority of jobs are filled through intrapersonal and professional connections and are never advertised to the greater public.
pYBje TIL baseball's Texas Rangers would not swap an August game series at the Houston Astros for a September series at the Rangers. Most of Houston was flooded at the time. Instead, the series was played in Tampa, Florida. The Rangers' explanation was that swapping would inconvenience ticketholders.
dDWQE TIL that Gore-Tex is composed of the material commercially know as Teflon. It has tiny perforations that will pass water vapour but not droplets.