› added 6 years ago

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TIL that Hawaii's statehood was delayed for several decades because of consistent opposition by the "Solid South" (southern states) who refused to tolerate non-white Congressmen

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5VxxR TIL To get a car stuck in sand out, dont dig the sand, pour about a litre of water around stuck tires, wait a minute and the wet sand will add enough traction to get out with ease. No pushing or digging and very little effort. Extremely helpful at the beach or desert
WkWMN TIL Narinder Singh Kapani (1926-2020) is acknowledged as the Father of 'Fiber optics'-a term he coined. His work in 1953 ushered in a new era of High speed Internet, endoscopy, spectroscopy etc An unsung hero, he never patented it. He NEVER won a nobel.
VBr6Z TIL in the 1980s, the networked ICON computer was commissioned by the Ontario, Canada Ministry of Education. Nicknamed the "bionic beaver", it ran on a Unix-like OS and featured a trackball. Subject to political debate for wasting money with a niche ecosystem, it was orphaned by 1994 and destroyed.
a80ko TIL that an umbrella was used by Bulgarian spies during the Cold War to assassinate a dissident by firing a pellet filled with ricin
9w5wM TIL that Spelling Bees (competitions where competitors must correctly spell words until one is left standing) don't really exist outside of English, and within English, they're pretty much only an American thing