› added 6 years ago

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TIL that Julia Child worked in the OSS during WWII. While serving in the OSS she helped develop a shark repellent to keep curious sharks away from underwater explosives. The repellent is still used to this day.

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4XvGa TIL of Ulugh Beg Observatory from 1420. Their hypothesis of a stellar year was rather accurate, at 365 days, 6 hours, 10 minutes and 8 seconds, only about 1 minute longer than the modern calculations
5AQn TIL: In late 90s Will Smith told Eminem, “You’ll either be the biggest flop, or the biggest thing we’ve ever seen”.
9Ykr6 TIL that in 1938, Henry Ford was awarded Nazi Germany's Grand Cross of the German Eagle. That is the medal awarded to foreigners sympathetic to Nazism.
nWp7o TIL Volkswagen makes ketchup
4XpKX TIL Betty Robinson, who won the first Olympic 100m for women in 1928 at just 16, was later involved in a plane crash. A man who discovered her wrongly thought she was dead and drove her to an undertaker. She awoke from her coma 7 months later, before returning to win a relay gold in 1936.