› added 11 years ago

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TIL that the illegal landing of a “mentally unstable” 19 year old amatuer pilot in the Red Square inadvertantly helped lead to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War.

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E1D17 TIL both Caller ID and call waiting were invented Dr Shirley Jackson; the first African-American woman to gain a PhD from MIT. Her breakthroughs in theoretical physics & telecommunications also allowed for portable fax, fibre optic cables, and solar cells.
4XQoa TIL about the cube teapot, which is a teapot whose main purpose was to be used on a ship. The cube shape of the teapot would stabilize it so that it would not roll over and scald the person making the drink, whereas conventional curved teapots would roll over when the ship rocked from side to side.
yQWav TIL a woman's advanced metastatic breast cancer was cured with an experimental immunotherapy treatment. DNA in Judy Perkins' tumor tissue was analyzed for mutations specific to her cancer; billions of her unique T cells were lab-grown & infused back into her body with the aid of two drugs.
5VAl9 TIL that there have been several scientific papers published associating the winning chances in football or soccer matches with playing a short pass based possession game, now known popualrly as tiki taka
wLGko TIL North Carolina was paid $80 million by other states to build a waste treatment plant, did nothing, was sued in the Supreme Court—and won