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TIL The word “ham” (as in HAM Radio) is not an acronym. In the early days of telegraphy & radio comms, professional operators would refer to amateur operators as “hams”, implying their incompetence. The slur was eventually forgotten and the amateur radio community widely adopted the term “HAM Radio”

J17Q TIL: There is an area of the universe a billion light years across that has virtually nothing in it, not even dark matter.
yQXge TIL: 53-year-old former Chicago Sun Times Publisher, James Tyree, died accidentally from an air embolism and the family won a ten million dollar wrongful death suit settlement.
ENPX TIL of the the Compromise of 1877, an unwritten deal that settled the controversial and disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. The deal gave ® Rutherford B. Hayes the last 20 electoral votes to win the election as long as he removed federal troops from the South
gM689 TIL The bazooka was a brass musical instrument created by Comedian Bob Burns. It was several feet in length and incorporated telescopic tubing like the trombone. The military borrowed the nickname for its anti-tank weapon during World War II due to its vague resemblance to the musical instrument.
PYdRG TIL that satellites in the 1960s used nuclear radiation for power by radioisotope thermoelectric generators. However, in 1964 such a satellite disintegrated and spread approx. 1 kg of radioactive plutonium-238 over the planet. This failure led NASA to develop solar PV energy technology.