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TIL A whip makes its cracking noise because the whip’s tip breaks the sound barrier and what you hear is actually a small sonic boom.

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ADdrl TIL of CSX 8888, known as "crazy eights": A runaway train that ran uncontrolled through Ohio for two hours at up to 82 km/h. Police tried to stop it by shooting at a fuel cut-off switch and it was eventually stopped by a second locomotive chasing behind it so an engineer could jump aboard.
BRlb TIL Matt Stone & Trey Parker had people warn them that there would be Mormon protests surrounding their musical “The Book of Mormon”, but the church has had a great sense of humor about it, even advertising in some BOM playbills with phrases like “the book is always better”
8aG6V TIL in 1957, BBC pulled a April Fools prank by including a segment about spaghetti harvest in their news show Panorama, discussing how spaghetti is grown in fields in Switzerland. As a result, people phoned the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree.
N77mQ TIL Inbreeding is a humongous problem in the middle east. 70% of marriages in Pakistan are between first cousins, and roughly 50% of people in the 'Arab world' are 'inbred'.
vPRZK TIL That a "bindle" is the bundle of belongings wrapped in a blanket or bandana and carried over the shoulder on a stick by the American "hobo" trope. Another name for a hobo carrying such a bindle is a "bindlestiff".