› added 5 years ago

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TIL while Michael Collins was orbiting the moon, mission control warned of a problem with the shuttle's coolant system. Instead of fixing the problem manually as advised, he flicked the system's switch from auto to manual, then back to auto, and carried on with other chores. The issue self resolved.

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Wk5Kd TIL in a relatively massive scientific discovery around 1676, Danish astronomer Ole Roemer was the first to calculate that light travels at a finite speed. He studied Jupiter's moons and determined their eclipses happened sooner than predicted when the Earth was closer to Jupiter.
VMAyZ TIL that shortly after assuming power, Hitler used the burning of the German Parliment, the Reichstag building, to declare a national emergency crisis, consolidate power, and begin taking away civil liberties.
mxp7v TIL Oxana Malaya wad abandoned by her alcoholic parents at age 2, and for the next 5 years lived with a pack of dogs. At 7 years old, she couldn't speak, walked on all fours and behaved like a dog in every way
MZ1A TIL Gene Roddenberry devised the names for his characters Khan (Khan Noonien Singh) and Data’s father Noonien Soong in the hopes that a friend he had met in WWII would recognize his name and contact him.
jNEga TIL the classic 1970 war movie Kelly's Heroes was based on an actual robbery of the Nazi gold reserves by a syndicate of US and German servicemen in 1945. It was covered up by the US and Germany and only two gold bars found in 1996 have been recovered worth about $1m at today's prices.