› added 11 years ago

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TIL that 2 nights before he broke the sound barrier, Chuck Yeager fell off a horse and broke his ribs. He didn’t tell anyone because he didn’t want to be taken off the mission. He had a local veterinarian tape him up.

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kJOW4 TIL Lake Constance is the only place in Europe without clear borders as the countries that intersect it disagree over who has sovereignty. Austria thinks they own the lake equally as a condominium, Switzerland insists the border runs down the middle, and Germany's opinion is basically ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
nrno TIL in 1998, violent Islamic terrorists bombed a Planet Hollywood in Capetown, killing 2 people and maiming others including a little girl who lost her leg. They did this in protest of the movie The Seige, which they felt protrayed them as violent Islamic terrorists.
JYND1 TIL that the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy was originally just a fan-fiction of the Twilight series. It was called Master of The Universe, written by EL James under the pen name Snowqueens Icedragon.
6oyQ TIL the transmission of power via ropes and pulleys is more efficient than transmission by electricity up to a distance of several miles.
W77b9 TIL 18th century French chemist, physicist, and inventor Louis-Sebastien Lenormand is credited with the first witnessed descent with a parachute, and also with coining the term "parachute," which literally means "against a fall."