› added 4 years ago

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TIL that National Reconnaissance Office donated two Hubble-class telescopes to The National Science Foundation, because they were only gathering dust in a warehouse. NRO is the agency in charge of USA's spy satellities, the donation was prompted by the two telescopes becoming obsolete for spying.

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aRob TIL that the last descendant of the ancient Egyptian language, Coptic, died as a spoken language by the 1600s. It has survived until today as the language of religious services of Egypt’s 10% Christian minority-the Copts. The alphabet uses Greek letters plus extra letters deriving from hieroglyphics
0w61L TIL: Hitler and the Nazis were big on environmentalism. The Nazis were the first European nation to establish nature reserves and order the protection of wildlife and passed numerous animal rights law. At times the soldiers were order to plant trees on the battlefield.
m08Y TIL the African continent had a native species of bear “The Atlas Bear” which suffered great populations declines due to the Roman empire’s demand for animals for gladiatorial events. The animal was hunted into extinction by the 1870s
QNg9X TIL that Bourton-on-the-Water, an English village, contains a model of the village that is so accurate that the model contains a second smaller model of itself
nerNG TIL SR-71 pilot Bill Weaver survived plunging from more than 78k feet after his plane malfunctioned and fell apart around him at more than 3 times the speed of sound. The force of the disintegration was so massive he was ripped from his ejection seat. Two weeks later he was back flying the Blackbird