› added 1 year ago

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TIL about Phobos 1, a Soviet space probe launched to study Mars' moon. It shut down before ever reaching Mars because a technician left out a single hyphen in one of the keyed commands. All commands were supposed to be proofread by a computer before being transmitted, but the computer malfunctioned.

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wLoao TIL: Mercury was required for felting fabrics, especially hats. Hatters in the 1800’s had chronic mercury toxicity that caused mental instability thus dubbing the term “mad hatters disease” or “mad as a hatter”- and was the primary plight that Louis Carroll developed the mad hatter character around.
7Gyb TIL A U.S. infantryman named Bill Millin stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day playing bagpipes. German snipers didn’t shoot him because they thought he was insane.
4kVLa TIL: Every Java class binary starts with the 8-digit hexadecimal number 0xCAFE_BABE. If you own an Android phone, this "magic number" is likely compiled into thousands of individual files on it.
ZDjR TIL that the saying “when it rains, it pours” actually comes from the tagline of Morton Salt, whose ionized salt didn’t clump in damp/humid weather
rRXwy TIL the placenta evolved from an ancient virus.