› added 11 years ago

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TIL that the atomic clocks aboard GPS satellites are programmed to compensate for time dilation due to General Relativity. Otherwise, after just one day, GPS devices would show coordinates that would be off by around 10Km!

Read more astronomy.ohio-state.edu

via reddit.com

oRByL TIL that the Battle of the Bulge marked the first time the U.S. Army desegregated troops during WWII.
QR9E TIL that during the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact soldiers, road signs in towns were removed or painted over to confuse invading troops—except for those indicating the way to Moscow.
aexb TIL that the chief of Police in St. Paul let mobsters like Machine Gun Kelly, John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson live in the city as long as they didn’t commit any crimes there. They were also protected from extradition and tipped off of any federal raids.
YpO6P TIL that, in 1965, a radio personality in Vancouver committed to living on the top of the massive Bowmac car dealership sign until all the cars were sold. He had been poisoning his wife with arsenic for months, and the nine day gap in the poisoning would later get him convicted of her murder.
JOV TIL that there are more Americans in the Philippines than in the UK.