› added 3 months ago

24

TIL about the KH-9 HEXAGON spy satellite, which used stereo film cameras to monitor Soviet military capability with a ground resolution greater than 2 ft. The film was wound in 4 maneuverable re-entry vehicles that could carry up to 77,500 ft each, and were recovered at 50,000 ft via aircraft.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

OPv6 TIL that Chipotle spends less on advertising in a year than McDonald’s does in 48 hours.
ZnGG TIL that “Dinner” refers to the main meal of the day, while “Supper” refers to the evening meal.
Q0Oa TIL in 2010, a school board gave Macbooks to students, secretly spied on them, and punished them later at school.
Eg5Qo TIL about Genericide - where a trademark is lost because the trademarked term becomes the generic name for the item so it can't be copyrighted; this happened to "escalator" where it lost its copyright when it became the common term for any kind of moving stairs.
OoO6Y TIL having shot a man in the head, Andrew Lyons's lawyer argued for manslaughter. The victim died when a surgeon transplanted the heart from the brain-dead victim: Andrew's bullet wasn't fatal. Following the case California issued a law allowing surgeons to transplant organs from brain-dead patients