› added 11 years ago

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TIL in 1738 Jaques de Vaucanson created a mechanical duck that could flap its wings,drink water,digest grain and even defecate. The duck had over 400 moving parts in each wing alone. Vaucanson is credited as having invented the world’s first flexible rubber tube while building the duck’s intestines

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6EVDm TIL that 844 people died aboard the SS Eastland because it had too MANY lifeboats. After the Titanic disaster, Congress passed laws requiring more lifeboats. This made the SS Eastland too top-heavy, and in 1915, it capsized before even leaving the dock.
e0V5k TIL that there was a rumor that Stephen Hawking would deliberately run over the toes of people he didn’t like. He denied this rumor by stating it was “A Malicious rumor” and “I’ll run over anyone who repeats it”.
j4rE TIL a bacteria, Paracoccus denitrificans, not only survived in an ultracentrifuge with high speeds corresponding to 403,627 g, but actually had robust cellular growth. Hyperaccelerations like this are found on very massive stars and the shockwaves of super novas.
KDV4 TIL that suburban neighborhoods were made to prevent people of being Communists. William Levitt, father of modern American suburbia declared: “No one who owns his own house and lot can be a Communist. He has too much to do.”
v1d78 TIL During the Trial of Joan of Arc, the prosecution, headed by Pierre Cauchon, sent an agent to France to collect dirt on her life in her home village. Cauchon was enraged when the agent "had found nothing concerning Joan that he would not have liked to find about his own sister".