Astronauts Mark Lee and Jan Davis married in secret 9 months before their joint flight to the ISS and didn’t tell NASA until it was too late to train replacements. They are the only married couple to have ever flown in space together.
Pictures
Agatha Christie was a surfer
Agatha became skilled at body-boarding in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and in Hawaii she learned to ride while standing on the board.
The origin of the word “Cliché”
The word “Cliché” originates from the clicking sound made when printing plates are used to create the same text over and over. The plates used in this process are also known as “stereotypes.”
Rat Trap
Jason Alexander Williams didn’t mess around when it came to killing rodents. His ‘animal trap’ (patented in 1882) shot them dead:
My invention relates to an improvement in animal-traps; and it consists in the combination of a suitable frame upon which a revolver or pistol is secured, a treadle which is secured to the front end of this frame, and a suitable spring and levers, by which the firearm is discharged when the animal steps upon the treadle, as will be more fully described hereinafter.
The object of my invention is to provide a means by which animals which burrow in the ground can be destroyed, and which trap will give an alarm each time that it goes off, so that it can be reset.
And his invention didn’t just kill rodents. Williams noted:
This invention may also be used in connection with a door or window, so as to kill any person or thing opening the door or window to which it is attached.
Balls of moss move in herds across glaciers
‘Herds’ of moss balls living on glaciers in Iceland and Alaska travel as a group in a coordinated way. They move about 2.5cm day but are not rolling down slopes, following the sun or being pushed by the wind.
Sister Mary Kenneth Keller (PHD, 1965): The First PHD In Computer Science in the US
In 1965, sister Mary Kenneth Keller was the first woman to get a Ph.D in computer science. She believed that the use of computers have boundless capacity for the sharing of information.
Sister Mary worked on developing the BASIC programming language. BASIC is a way of translating the zeroes and ones of computer code into something more intuitive and straightforward. It is a general-purpose, high level programming language which helped broaden computer programming into non maths and science fields, subsequently giving many people their first experience with programming.
Pale Blue Dot
Carl Sagan convinced NASA to turn the Voyager Spacecraft towards earth and take the iconic “Pale Blue Dot” photo nearly 4 billions miles away from earth.
The Gunman who wasn’t there in custody
In 1974, Oakland police spent two hours trying to convince a mentally disturbed gunman holed up in his apartment to surrender—only to discover that he was standing next to them helping to direct the police.
Andy, the Footless Goose
In the late 1980s a gosling was born in Harvard, Nebraska. Although this is a relatively common occurrence, this little hatchling was different, as he was born with stumps for feet. A local inventor named Gene Fleming heard of this and fitted the goose named Andy with specially made Nike baby shoes. Andy gained fame as a role model for disabled children and Nike provided him with a lifetime supply of shoes.
Illustration by Walter Molino from 1962 about life in 2022
