› added 4 months ago

9

TIL that Tic-Tacs were launched under the name “Refreshing Mints.” They changed the name a year later based on the distinctive clicking noise made by opening and closing the package.

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W7eZA TIL– A hundredweight is actually 112 lbs.
XE0dX TIL That to calculate the position of the Voyager 1 spacecraft some 12.5 billion miles away, you only need to use the first 15 digits of the value of Pi to be accurate within 1.5 inches
165gr TIL ancient geographers knew that Earth was a sphere but there was intense debate on the question if the opposite side of the planet is also inhabited by humans (called Antipodeans). Most thought that Antipodeans do not exist because intense heat at the equator forms an impassable barrier.
rNObo TIL the name of the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse was created by selecting two random names from a phone book. First names for the fictional founders were the names of the actual founder's dogs.
D1mv TIL the (hilarious comedy) “Airplane!” was a remake of the 1957 (totally serious) dramatic film “Zero Hour,” and contains many of the same exact lines and scenes.