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TIL: In the early days of railroads/railways, workers used “detonators” to warn the conductor and others of caution ahead on the tracks. The “detonator” was a charge placed on the rails that would produce a very loud bang when the train passed over it.

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4XYYo TIL: Michael Shen Fu-Tsung was one of the first Chinese to visit England in 1681. His works can still be found at Oxford University library.
Org4 TIL that in MIT students once put a police car on top of MIT’s dome overnight with the flashing warning lights still in operation with a dummy policeman inside holding a box of donuts and coffee.
xVvKw TIL One of the reasons Walmart failed to establish itself in Germany is that it required its checkout employees to smile at customers. This was however perceived by most Germans as unnerving, as Germans usually don't smile at strangers.
v1vw8 TIL: Until the late 1400s the word ‘girl’ just meant a child of either sex. If you had to differentiate between them, male children were referred to as ‘knave girls’ and females were ‘gay girls‘.
61R8 TIL that there are 17 American men in history who have run under 2:10 in the marathon. In contrast, there were 32 Kenyans who did it just in October of 2011.