Post * b9QQp — Curious Curator

› added 4 years ago

72

TIL The novel "The English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje won the Booker Prize in 1992, and then won the Golden Booker Award (a special one-off prize awarded in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Booker Prize) 26 years later, in 2018.

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gj8D TIL that IBM was so powerful in 1983 that people feared that its PCjr home computer would destroy Apple, Commodore, and all other competitors. The PCjr became “one of the biggest flops in the history of computing”.

4bG5 TIL in 2010, the floor of a Weight Watchers clinic in Sweden collapsed beneath a group of 20 members who were in line for their weekly weigh in. The floor collapsed in one corner of the room, fault lines spread, & other sections of the floor gave way. Nobody was hurt.

P1bkV TIL Billionaire Richard Branson started more than 100 businesses in total and failed at least 15 times

X0D6r TIL Robert Reed, the actor who played the dad on The Brady Bunch, was ultimately fired from the series and written out of the final episode

VMexB TIL that explosive cartridges can be inserted into a B-52 bomber's engines to get them up and running more quickly, if needed. The "cart start" reduces takeoff time from about an hour down to ten minutes.