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TIL a bridge in Ireland that was designed to swing open for ships couldn't be opened for four years because someone lost the remote control

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0dgEA TIL physicist Walter Jaeger was trying to invent a sensor to detect poison gas. He expected the gas to alter the sensor's electric current but it did not. Frustrated, he lit a cigarette and was surprised to see smoke altered the current. This discovery led to the creation of the modern smoke alarm.
4Xx95 TIL Charlie Hebdo fired it's long time cartoonist for anti-Semitism. When asked to apologise he replied, "I'd rather cut my own balls off."
GYZ1j TIL that City Park in New Orleans holds the world's largest collection of mature live oak trees, some older than 600 years in age.
wLDJ1 TIL a suicide bomber with explosives in his laptop boarded the Somali owned Daallo Airlines in 2016 intending to blow the whole aircraft. Twenty minutes after the takeoff, the bomb exploded, creating a hole in the plane, and the suicide bomber was sucked out of the plane. He was the only fatality.
LQRQ TIL The Space Age is 55 years old today. On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik 1.