› added 9 years ago

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TIL that Washington DC’s metro system is plagued by unstable funding & poor safety maintenance. The control room has 1000+ ignored alarms a day, while train operators pee on the track & one who, due to poor driver-control room relations, reportedly disabled trains mid-run on purpose.

Read more washingtonian.com

via reddit.com

PY6pE TIL in October 1966, a soldier named Nguyen Van Leong, of South Vietnam, had an unexploded motor shell lodge in his chest, he was carried into the U.S. Navy Hospital, utmost precaution was used, the operation was a success, he survived & the bomb did not explode
78nbb TIL that lead, a notorious neurotoxin, was used as a sweetener in Ancient Rome, having been confirmed to cause the death of Pope Clement II
0we8R TIL jazz legend Billie Holiday was raised in a brothel by teenage parents, worked as a prostitute alongside her mother, was addicted to heroin her entire life and, weeks before her death at 44, was arrested for heroin possession in her hospital bed.
4X4r5 TIL In 1922, the Bureau of Public Roads commissioned Gen. John J. Pershing to make a map for construction purposes and to highlight which roads in the U.S. were the most important in the event of war. The "Pershing Map" was the first official topographic road map of the United States.
v1Vr7 TIL about Vincent van Gogh's death. He shot himself in the chest, missing vital organs, dying 30 hours later in a hospital with his brother Theo at his side, his last words having been "The sadness will last forever".