› added 10 years ago

118

TIL A&T offered a 900 number ($2 first minute, $0.45 for each additional minute) where callers could hear the live ground loop during shuttle missions. This was also used for up-to-the-minute details of Voyager’s encounter with Neptune.

Read more news.google.com

via reddit.com

NVZM TIL after the french revolution, France briefly used a new calendar based on a decimal system; 10 days a week, 10 hours a day, 100 minutes per hour and 100 seconds per minute, and starting at Year 1.
b6RY7 TIL: During Prohibition in the US, it was illegal to buy or sell alcohol, but it was not illegal to drink it. Some wealthy people bought out entire liquor stores before it passed to ensure they still had alcohol to drink.
9Y676 TIL Serbian is practically the only European language whose speakers are fully functionally digraphic: that is, they commonly use two different alphabets to read and write (Cyrillic and Latin)
xVD90 TIL That Lincoln was almost assassinated 9 months before he was assassinated. While riding back to the Soliders' Home, a rifle fired hitting his hat. His horse was startled and ran "break-neck speed" as the President described it. Lincoln dismissed it as a hunting accident.
aw56o TIL the derelict Tomlinson Hall in Indianapolis, Indiana was destroyed by a fire on January 30, 1958, allegedly after a pigeon dropped a lit cigarette on the roof of the building