› added 3 months ago

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TIL that cereal company General Mills had an Aeronautical Research Division that produced spy balloons for the American military and the CIA

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neQJ9 TIL of Plastic Pyrolysis. A process of heating plastic in the absence of oxygen to create solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels. Literally turning plastic back into oil!
wnEY TIL Steven Spielberg declined to direct the Harry Potter movies and said “It’s just like withdrawing a billion dollars and putting it into your personal bank accounts. There’s no challenge.”
ney4b TIL that two men led a team of 80 people to collect over 1.2 million golden orb spiders, milk them for their silk, and create the rarest textile on earth: a golden silk cape
d8rr8 TIL The Bee Gees were going to lip sync to a record in the local Gaumont cinema, but as they were running to the theatre, the fragile shellac 78-RPM record broke. The brothers had to sing live and received such a positive response from the audience that they decided to pursue a singing career.
xlKo TIL due to an extraordinary coincidence, one inch is to one mile as one AU (distance from Earth to Sun) is to one Light-Year. This helps you grasp just how big the universe is. The Earth is 26,000 Light Years from the center of the Milky Way