› added 5 years ago

225

TIL radioactivity was discovered accidentally due to bad weather. H. Becquerel stopped his experiments on uranium that required sunlight in an overcast day and put uranium crystals and photographic plates away in a drawer. When he opened the drawer, he discovered the radioactive nature of uranium.

Read more aps.org

via reddit.com

VBLk0 TIL comedian Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan originally chose as his epitaph "I told you I was ill" (Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite)
xV7pw TIL about Xia Peisu, “The Mother of Computer Science in China.” With the country isolated from the rest of the world, she managed to develop the first indigenous PC, the Model 107, and to create the first schools in computer science.
kJd8e TIL that in addition to being an award-winning comedic actress know for her various film and television roles, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the daughter of French billionaire businessman Gérard Louis-Dreyfus.
R5P9 TIL A Japanese diplomat in Lithuania during WWII disobeyed multiple direct orders from his government and wrote special visas enabling thousands of Lithuanian Jews to escape the Holocaust. His reward was a ruined career and decades of ignominy and deprivation. He had no regrets.
wMm8 TIL Chuck Yeager - first pilot to exceed Mach 1 - was shot down over France in WW2, taught bomb-making to Resistance groups who helped him, escaped into Spain, argued the high command into letting him back into combat against regulations, then became an Ace (bringing down 5 enemy aircraft) in 1 day.