› added 11 years ago

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TIL the original height of Mount Everest “was calculated to be exactly 29,000 ft (8,839.2 m) high, but was publicly declared to be 29,002 ft (8,839.8 m) in order to avoid the impression that an exact height of 29,000 feet (8,839.2 m) was nothing more than a rounded estimate.”

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8a7vL TIL Pete Conrad (3rd Man on Moon) to prove a journalist wrong who thought the government told the astronauts what to say while on the moon bet her $500 dollars and said, "Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me." According to him, he never got that $500.
4kLZb TIL: Impressed with his energy and ability to do the splits, the owner of the Oakland A's hired an 11-year old named Stanley Burrell as a batboy and personal play-by-play announcer. A's player Reggie Jackson gave the kid a nickname, Hammer, who would later become MC Hammer.
E1ZD7 TIL that the although the opening of the video of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen shows all band members singing, it is actually a 5-part harmony that's all multi-track recordings of Freddy Mercury's voice.
oBX4o TIL “Crank Magnetism” is the term for the likelihood that a person who believes in one ridiculous conspiracy will probably believe many others, even if they logically conflict.
61AX TIL to stop piracy Sony BMG distributed a rootkit program through CDs which created vulnerabilities in OS which were exploited by malware. Facing criticisms, they released an “uninstaller” which only un-hid the program and introduced further security vulnerabilities.