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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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kjAg TIL Keanu Reeves had his daughter and girlfriend pass away within 18 months of each other
ekEn TIL that Joseph Stalin, though depicted “as physically massive and majestic,” was actually only “5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m)”. He was shorter than Napoleon and President Truman referred to him as “a little squirt” after first meeting the dictator.
MJj7 TIL Dominos Pizza stopped using its “Avoid The Noid” mascot because a 22 yr old paranoid schizophrenic named Kenneth Noid–thinking he was the real Noid–took 2 employees hostage with a .357 magnum revolver.
j6AQp TIL that Nazi Officer Klaus Barbie, tortured prisoners during WW2, fled to the USA where he worked as a CIC Agent, emigrated to Bolivia where he made business with Pablo Escobar, helped capturing Che Guevara, was recruited by the BND (German Intelligence) and finally sentenced for life by France.
vwdx TIL An ant mill is an observed phenomenon in which a group of army ants, which are blind, are separated from the main foraging party, lose the Pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle. The ants will eventually die of exhaustion.