› added 2 years ago

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TIL about the Carrington Event: in 1859 a massive solar flare spewed electrified gas and subatomic particles toward Earth, wreaking havoc on telegraph networks. Today it would stop our “modern life” for weeks.

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am9J TIL that Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada once choked out a man who offered him $12,000 to illegally approve his new casino games, while yelling “You son of a bitch, you tried to bribe me!”
78kyO TIL country singer and sausage magnate Jimmy Dean is buried beneath a 9 foot piano-shaped mausoleum with the epitaph, "Here Lies One Hell of a Man"
x6K4o TIL that while Nobody Beats the Wiz was indeed an actual electronics chain in the northeast, the Seinfeld character was not in their real-life commercials. The Seinfeld character was based on Crazy Eddie, another northeast electronics chain.
0wd91 TIL that England and Portugal have been allies since 1386, the longest unbroken treaty in effect today
oGR7 TIL that Leonardo da Vinci created plans for a “mechanized knight,” - a robot-like creation reliant on a system of pulleys. When these plans were found almost 500 years later and built according to Leonardo’s specifications, the design worked perfectly.