› added 10 years ago

195

TIL that former USSR Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov prevented a nuclear holocaust and potentially WWIII by going with his “gut feeling” and believing that the USSR’s early-warning satellite signal was faulty when it reported that the US had launched 5 ballistic missiles at them

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rNngW TIL that when Kurt Russell portrayed Snake Plissken in Escape from New York, he had been starring in Disney productions for much of the previous decade; Russell wanted to escape family-friendly typecasting
QNjkX TIL that people who were materialistic but aren't anymore, don't report higher life satisfaction
6vZm TIL that when setting up the Jeopardy! challenge involving the Watson supercomputer, IBM repeatedly expressed concerns that clue writers would exploit cognitive deficiencies in order to turn the show into a sort of Turing test. A neutral third party had to be brought in to select the questions.
4kMVw TIL the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was so intense that it obliterated most of the island and its surrounding archipelago. The explosion was equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT, and the ash cloud lowered global temperatures, leading to a "volcanic winter".
9wZw7 TIL of Gabe Sonnier, a man who started off as a janitor in a Louisiana elementary school until one day in 1985, when he was inspired by the then-principal to take up teaching. Gabe was 39 years old when he started studying for a teaching degree. He’s now the principal of that elementary school.