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Today I Learned NASA created a Capture the Flag contest for it's future of manned space travel. On its final flight, Shuttle Atlantis left a small flag on the ISS. This flag was attached to the hatch and was to be brought home by an American spacecraft. It comes home with SpaceX.

Read more nasa.gov

via reddit.com

NyN6 TIL that 85% of chinese people share only 100 surnames, and that “Li” and “Zhang” covers 13% of the chinese population.
b9R7a TIL about Andrew Jackson's assassination attempt. After Lawrence's pistols misfired, Jackson credited divine providence with intervening on his behalf. A century later, both pistols were tested and fired at the first shot. The odds that both would misfire was estimated to be about 1 in 125,000.
E1PdX TIL Saturation divers when not diving at extreme depths can spend almost two months at a time inside a tiny pressurized environment on board a ship and can only breathe a mixture of helium and oxygen as normal air will kill them. They do this to stay acclimated to the intense pressures they work in.
BvXL TIL Before Chernobyl, the Soviets had another massive nuclear disaster which contaminated over 20,000 square km. The area was turned into a preserve to cover up the accident. The CIA knew of the accident, but also covered it up in order to protect the fledgling US nuclear industry from hysteria.
a8ADy Today I learned that New Zealand have a law that bans anyone born January 1 2009 or later from buying tobacco, meaning there will one day be only 1 person in New Zealand who is legally allowed to buy cigarettes