› added 12 years ago

100

TIL that thanks to relatively few traffic lights, lots of roundabouts, and a very intensive driver training requirement, the UK has the lowest road death (per capita) of any country in the developed world.

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o9b8 TIL an Australian was responsible for the discovery of Tritium & Helium-3, conducted the first nuclear fusion experiment and convinced the Americans an atomic bomb was feasible, thus beginning the Manhattan Project.
yX08 TIL that when Steven Spielberg was to be awarded his honorary doctorate from USC’s Cinematic Arts school, he agreed to accept only if it was personally signed by the admissions officer who rejected him for an average “C” grade when he applied there as an aspiring film student. It was.
N7vkM TIL about the Osborne 1, the first commercially successful portable microcomputer. Released in 1981, it weighed nearly 25 pounds, had to be plugged into the wall and cost $1,795 (or roughly $5,000 in today's dollars).
pgP8 TIL that Theodore Roosevelt openly despised the nickname “Teddy”, and was quick to correct anyone who called him it. He preferred those working closely with him to refer to him as Colonel or Theodore.
dbyd TIL the Voyager 1 spacecraft, currently more than 20 billion km from earth, is powered by a radioisotope with a half-life of 87.7 years. It has been slowly shutting down systems since 2007 to conserve energy, and by 2025 will go completely dark as it loses the ability to power a single instrument.