› added 6 years ago

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TIL Infamous sound barrier-breaking pilot Chuck Yeager happened to take down one of the world’s first jet fighters in WWII, so he gets to say, “The first time I ever saw a jet, I shot it down."

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xVVGk Of all the bodies in our solar system, the sun is probably the one we want to give the widest berth. It gushes radiation, and even though its surface is the coolest part of the star, it burns at about 9,940°F, hot enough to incinerate just about any material. As such, there are no plans to send a manned mission in its direction anytime soon (Mars is much more interesting, anyway), but it can't hurt to figure out at what distance a person would want to turn back. You can get surprisingly close. The sun is about 93 million miles away from Earth, and if we think of that distance as a football field, a person starting at one end zone could get about 95 yards before burning up.
8e1Pb TIL 1700s Persian emperor Nader Shah kept fried peas on his person at all time, which he would eat if he didn't have time to prepare a proper meal
jMAX TIL the chlorine “smell” in pools is due to the chemical’s reaction with impurities…like poop….
yAYJ TIL Mick Foley nearly died during a wrestling match in 1998’s Hell in a Cell when he & Undertaker went off script. He was knocked unconscious after being thrown from the top of the cell, got up from the stretcher, climbed back up, choke slammed through the cell, and then once again on a bed of tacks
eg4E TIL there is an island off the coast of Dublin, Ireland that has a population of wallabies. They are the descendents of animals that Dublin Zoo could no longer care for due to overcrowding