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TIL that Xerox built the first personal computer with a mouse-based graphical user interface (GUI) in 1973, 10 years before anyone else. But they couldn't see any reason why anyone would want a PC so they didn't market it

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7r0bL TIL of Larry "Lawnchair Larry" Walters, who, in 1982, attached helium balloons to his lawnchair and flew at an altitude of 16,000 feet, and used a pellet gun to pop balloons before dropping the gun, then continued to land on power lines. He was later charged $1,500 for not communicating with an ATC
Oo097 TIL that the Black Knight in Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail was inspired by two Roman wrestlers who were in a very intense and entangled fight. After one surrendered from pain of a broken rib an attendant picked up the winner, tapping him and saying "You won" to discover that he was dead.
XE1WQ TIL that SETI scientists believed that the chances for finding intelligent extraterrestrial life were far greater than initially expected, since Earth developed two intelligent species - humans, and dolphins.
N7vkM TIL about the Osborne 1, the first commercially successful portable microcomputer. Released in 1981, it weighed nearly 25 pounds, had to be plugged into the wall and cost $1,795 (or roughly $5,000 in today's dollars).
XEa5r TIL there are 14,033 animals on the “least concern” list of endangerment and some of those animals numbers, like the Galah (species of parrot) are steadily increasing.