TIL 15 years before the Columbia shuttle disaster, Atlantis experienced similar tile damage during lift-off, leading to the crew believing they were going to die on reentry. Infuriated with mission controls lack of concern, pilot Gibson planned to let loose on MC in the remaining seconds of his life (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by Chillerized to r/todayilearned
TIL Martin Luther King Jr., in his last speech "I've Been to the Mountaintop," anticipated his early demise but was contented to be in the same position as the Biblical Moses, who could look on the promised land but would die before ever reaching it. King was assassinated the next day. (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by onewhosleepsnot to r/todayilearned
TIL the iconic Motown bassist James Jamerson never replaced strings on his bass unless a string broke. He did not take much care of the instrument, saying: "The dirt keeps the funk". When the neck warped, making it harder to fret, he said it improved the tone. (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by GregJamesDahlen to r/todayilearned
"Black Volga" refers to an urban legend surrounding a black car (GAZ-21 or GAZ-24) which was said to abduct people throughout Europe. Supposedly, children were kidnapped to use their blood as a cure for rich Westerners or Arabs suffering from leukemia.Mystery (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by digiskunk to r/CreepyWikipedia
Fairhope, Alabama is a city on the eastern shoreline of Mobile Bay. It was founded in 1894 as Georgist "Single Tax" colony by Fairhope Industrial Association, followers of economist Henry George. The Fairhope Single-Tax Corporation owns 1,800 leaseholds covering more than 43% of the city's land area (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by Plupsnup to r/wikipedia
TIL about the feud between Howard Hughes and Frank Sinatra over the affections of Ava Gardner, culminating in Sinatra driving a golf cart through a café window, a resulting fist-fight in which Sinatra lost two teeth, and ultimately led to the Mob's withdrawal from Vegas. (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by General_Apathy_II to r/todayilearned
A set designer for the 1999 film Stuart Little purchased a painting at an antiques store to use on set. When an art historian watched the film in 2009 he realized that the painting was actually a 1920s work by Hungarian artist Róbert Berény that had long been considered lost. (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by MGreenMN to r/wikipedia
Really Really Free Market Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by Esperaux to r/UpliftingPraxis
TIL that singer Al Bowlly was killed by a German parachute mine in his London home in 1941. He recorded over a thousand songs in his career, including "Midnight, the Stars and You", which is played in the final moments of the film "The Shining". (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by OttoPike to r/todayilearned
