TIL that there are over two dozen universities in the U.S. that have their own nuclear reactors. https://ift.tt/CDm60n9

TIL about the death of Poltergeist actress Dominique Dunne. She was strangled into a coma by her ex-boyfriend and passed away 5 days later. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served just three and a half years in prison. https://ift.tt/iTVno3L

TIL that WHAM-O's Slip N' Slide is not supposed to be used by persons over the age of 12. There have been rare instances (and lawsuits) of adults breaking their necks while using it and in 1993, the U.S. CPSC warned that the slide might cause permanent spinal cord injury to teens and adults. https://ift.tt/tOnRYTF

TIL that because the period (.) was already in use in France to make Roman numerals more readable, they adopted, along with many other countries, commas to separate numbers and decimals (9.99 vs 9,99) https://ift.tt/BDlAcUk

TIL Harry Belafonte negotiated a pay-or-play contract in 1959. When network executives said "we can have black folks on TV, we can have white folks on TV. We can't have them together. You have to choose." Belafonte answered "No, but you still have to pay me." https://ift.tt/vwtNdIU

TIL that in 2012, Children's Hospital Los Angeles had to issue a statement that they were not affiliated with the billboards for the Adult Swim show "Children's Hospital," which featured Rob Corddry in bloody scrubs and clown makeup https://ift.tt/S8R7NyP

TIL that in 2019, Boeing laid off several hundred Quality Assurance Engineers. https://ift.tt/Z0zArkF

TIL that Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel to space on June 16, 1963, when she orbited Earth as part of the Vostok 6 mission. She remains the youngest woman to fly to space, the only female astronaut/ cosmonaut to make a solo space journey. https://ift.tt/t5xEWiS

TIL in 1968 the Beach Boys recorded a song written by the Manson Family cult leader Charles Manson- “Never Learn Not to Love”. https://ift.tt/KkIrfTL

TIL a 2013 survey, involving 1,081 doctors regarding advance end-of-life directives, found that 88.3% said they would choose do-not-resuscitate or "no code" orders for themselves. https://ift.tt/9oIBhLH

TIL Ruth Snyder was executed by electric chair on January 12, 1928. She was secretly photographed mid-execution, which became the first photo of an execution by electric chair printed in media. https://ift.tt/JdBUz0l

TIL that the Japanese founder of McDonald’s Japan authored “The Jewish Way of Doing Business”. The book was an immediate success and went on to sell over a million copies. https://ift.tt/5U6CEfz

TIL When Tom Petty finished his album Full Moon Fever label head Irv Azoff refused to release it, insisting there were no hits on it. After he quit the album was released and spawned 5 hit singles, 3 of which went to #1, and went 5X platinum. The album had contributions from the Travelling Wilburys https://ift.tt/bdpBcKL

TIL that 96% of Mali's exports is gold https://ift.tt/R6ThK4q

TIL The actor who played Lorne on the TV Series Angel died at the age of 33 from a dental infection that traveled to his heart https://ift.tt/MJx1v3X

TIL that long before we started saying 'LOL' on the internet, the Dutch have been using 'lol' to mean fun since the Middle Ages - and it's just a wild coincidence https://ift.tt/N2uH5Ke

TIL Captain Video and His Video Rangers (1949-55) was one of the first science fiction TV shows and had a run of 1537 episodes. Only about 20 of the episodes survive today as as the original recordings were dumped in the ocean off the coast of New York. https://ift.tt/iM79pyC

TIL we don't actually know how or why general anesthesia works https://ift.tt/64oneMU

TIL in 1979 the director of South Korea's CIA assassinated the South Korean president https://ift.tt/XqZFohG

TIL McDonald's was fined $4 million in 1999 for not reporting 400+ injuries of children using Big Mac Climber jungle gyms, where children climbed up a tube from the ground and played between two giant metal hamburger buns. The last Big Mac Climbers were removed from McDonald's playgrounds in 1997. https://ift.tt/caZew1h

TIL Franken Berry Cereal caused a boy to be hospitalized for days due to the dye causing pink poop which led to worries of rectal bleeding. https://ift.tt/iPYyKm3