› added 6 years ago

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Today I learned that the first Steam Engine was invented in Alexandria,Egypt in the 1st century AD. The Egyptians couldnt find any practical use to it and the tecnology was lost in history until beeing re-invented in the 17 century!

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

mDAx TIL that Frank Sinatra carried a roll of dimes until the day he died, and was buried with a roll of dimes because he was scared of running out of change when talking to his son’s kidnappers on the pay phone.
O5DX TIL Radiation is often measured as “banana equivalent doses,” where 1 dose is the amount of radioactivity in a banana.
b9yM4 TIL that while making the movie The Incredibles, director Brad Bird intentionally used the artists who were likely to quit or get fired from Pixar. He believed that only they could create what he wanted in the movie.
rZYd TIL that in August 1943, Roosevelt approved a secret shipment of banned chemical weapons to Italy aboard the SS John Harvey. This ship was bombed by the Luftwaffe which lead to an unintentional release of mustard gas on the city of Bari, Italy.
WOQX TIL that the roundest object in the world was handcrafted by one man because no machine in the world could match his precision.