› added 1 year ago

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TIL A one-way trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway involves crossing 3,901 bridges

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via reddit.com

l77WA TIL that the last American pilot to become an ace (score 5 or more air-to-air combat kills) was Richard Stephen Richie. He scored his 5th kill in August, 1972. Since him, no American pilot has more than 3 kills.
LQLMV TIL Potassium chloride, a salt substitute for food often mixed with ordinary table salt to form low sodium salt, is used as the final drug in the sequence of execution by lethal injection
GAWK1 TIL about Maria Spelterini, who in 1876 became the first (and only) woman to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope. She crossed several more times with increasingly difficult handicaps: peach baskets strapped to her feet, blindfolded, and with her wrists and ankles shackled together.
p880N TIL that the first documented use of fireworks in the UK was in 1486 at Henry VII's wedding, and that Elizabeth I enjoyed fireworks so much that she had a "Fire Master" to oversee royal displays
WKjd TIL Thaddeus Jimenez was jailed at 13 years old for murder, served 16 years, and awarded $25 million for wrongful incarceration when his conviction was overturned. He used that money to start a gang.