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TIL the first railroad fatality was William Huskisson, who crossed tracks to shake hands with the Duke of Wellington

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Wkx5A TIL that Circuit city's exectutives, when suggested to by a consultant, opened a used car retailer that didn't charge transaction fees. That company, CarMax, is currently the largest used car dealership in the United States with 173 locations.
j6jxE TIL that Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers, known simply as Cane's, was founded in 1996, and named after the owner's Yellow Labrador Retriever. Other yellow labs have served as the company mascot, though the dog is not seen on signs for the restaurant in Kuwait, where dogs are not popular.
0wmER TIL Christopher Columbus used a book of astronomical tables when the next lunar eclipse would take place and use it to warn the indigenous people in Jamaica to treat his crew better or else the moon would rise red. Lunar eclipse happened, and they pleaded Columbus to restore the moon.
DQBmV TIL a man named Muhammad al-Qahtani claimed to be the Mahdi (a messianic figure in Islamic eschatology) and formed a cult following that besieged and took over Al-Haram, the holiest Islamic site, in the city of Mecca for more than two weeks, and had left 255 pilgrims killed and hundreds injured
BBmd TIL Wyatt Earp may have descended fom Americas first serial killers, the Harpe Brothers. Who murdered up to 40 people and even bashed an infant against a tree for crying. One was beheaded, his head left on a spike. That area is still known in Kentucky as “Harpe’s Head’