› added 4 years ago

150

TIL no matter what height a squirrel falls from, it will almost always survive due to its relatively low terminal velocity.

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9YQAm TIL the first Soviet probe sent to Mars' moon Phobos failed due to user error. While the probe was still on its way to Mars, an impatient technician who didn't want to wait for his code to be proofread unintentionally sent a command to the probe to shut down and there was no way to turn it back on.
46xa TIL Sidney Sheinberg wanted to change the title of Back To The Future to ‘Spaceman From Pluto’. Robert Zemeckis, horrified, asked Steven Spielberg for help, so Spielberg wrote Sheinberg a memo convincing him that they thought his title was just a joke, embarrassing him into dropping the name change.
R7jQ TIL Waylon Jennings gave up his seat on the plane that crashed and killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valenas and J.P. Richardson. He jokingly told Holly before the flight “I hope your ol’ plane crashes”
XE1DD TIL When Taiwan's president in 1995, Lee Teng-hui, had stopped in Honolulu to refuel his plane, the U.S government refused to grant him a visa and forced him to spend the night on his plane. Lee later complained that he was "being treated as a second-class leader."
mx9oE TIL that the 1841 Creole Mutiny -- the "most successful slave revolt in U.S. history" -- won the freedom of 128 people when the Creole, a ship carrying slaves from Virginia for sale in New Orleans, was taken over and sent to the Bahamas, straining U.S. relations with Great Britain.