› added 1 year ago

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TIL that after the Sunshine Skyway Bridge was destroyed in a collision with a freighter, the replacement bridge was designed with protective bumpers to prevent it from happening again. When a ship collided with the new bridge in 1987, the bridge was unaffected but the vessel took on water and sank.

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5YxxP TIL that in medieval times, there was a real fear that some people would kill holy men and women to sell off their body parts as relics. Guards even had had to watch over mortally ill holy men and women to prevent their body parts being sold soon as they died.
oBekr TIL that the Southern Pacific Comapy, while best known for its railroad operations, also owned and operated telegraph and telephone lines under the name Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony, which would later become the telecommunications company known by the acronym "Sprint."
rNQl4 TIL of an isolated village called Dali Koumbe (also known as Dali Gimba) in Mauritania, West Africa where the majority of people have been born blind for the past 10 generations. It is thought to be congenital, though some locals attribute it to an old prophesy that foretold of a blind baby's birth.
M766A TIL that in 1929, Jimmy Doolittle made the first flight using only instruments, with the cockpit windows blacked out. Proving pilots could fly “blind.” This paved the way for modern aviation. He later led the famous 1942 Doolittle Raid, the first U.S. airstrike on Japan in WWII.
gMo5W TIL The only person to serve prison time for the Iran-Contra Scandal was a minister who in protest stole a street sign named for John Poindexter.