› added 12 years ago

121

TIL Buzz Aldrin’s Mother’s maiden name was Moon

Read more buzzaldrin.com

via reddit.com

gMNaL TIL that in 2012, 10 year old Clara Lazen accidentally invented a new type of molecule called Tetranitratoxycarbon, they found out when she assembled carbon, oxygen and nitrogen atoms in a random way on a model. The teacher passed it on to a friend, and it was new. In the paper, she was credited.
rR4bo TIL of the “Great Sparrow Campaign” (打麻雀运动), during which Mao Zedong ordered the Chinese people to kill all sparrows, because they were eating farmers’ seeds. With the sparrows dead, the insect population exploded, and locusts devastated the rice fields.
N7PEE TIL that the first known recording of a human voice was made in 1860, but was only intended to show a sound wave visually, not to be played back. In 2008, it was optically scanned and converted to a sound file, revealing it to be a man singing "Au clair de la lune".
ne98P TIL black people are less likely to know how to swim due, in part, to historic bans on black people swimming in public pools. In 1964, a motel manager poured acid in the pool to scare away black swimmers who were staging a "swim in."
LkpRm TIL: Miami Vice was one of the first TV shows to be broadcast in stereo, but most TVs didn't support stereo audio at the time. In order to hear the 1984 Miami Vice pilot in stereo, viewers were expected to tune into a simulcast FM transmission on their HiFi.