› added 6 years ago

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TIL It was comic strip character Dick Tracy's wrist radio that inspired Martin Cooper of Motorola to conceive of the first portable cellular phone in 1973. This led to the 10-year process of bringing it to market.

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grZyb TIL that the world's oldest known message in a bottle was discovered on an Australian beach, having been thrown into the ocean over 132 years ago by a German ship's crew as part of a scientific experiment.
eNKD TIL in 2006, a Walmart in Canada, following a bomb threat, forced it’s employees to help police search the store for the bomb.
8e6VL TIL of Japanese Olympic athlete Shizo Kanakuri (金栗 四三), who held the world record for the longest marathon run of 54 years, 8 months, 5 hours, 32 minutes and 20.3.seconds after collapsing during the race, returning home, and finishing it decades later in his 70s.
9e0M TIL on one of its first test flights, the Boeing 787 spent 19 hours and 2/3rds of the United States drawing the number 787 and the Boeing logo.
nWmWY TIL that the oldest known printed advertisement was a Chinese needle ad from 3000 years ago