› added 1 month ago

5

TIL William B. Wilson, the first US Secretary of Labor, was born in Scotland and worked in Pennsylvania coal mines starting at the age of 9.

Read more dol.gov

via reddit.com

e00G5 TIL the underground streetcar system in San Francisco passes through the hull of a buried ship after tunnel boring crews discovered it when extending the line in the mid 1990s
R7NQ6 TIL a sheepdog made a 240-mile journey home to his birthplace in Wales after escaping from his new home in Cumbria. He was sent to the Cumbrian farm to work but turned up on the doorstep of his original owners 12 days later, limping and a little thinner than before, but in otherwise good condition.
dWKE TIL the “an average person eats nine spiders in their sleep” statistic was invented in the early 90’s as an example of the absurd things people will believe simply because they come across them on the Internet.
nWjGr TIL that during WW2, German pilots in North Africa would wrap Coca-Cola bottles in wet towels and attach them to the wings before takeoff, so that it would be cold when they landed and needed a drink.
gr6YA TIL: Toad the Wet Sprocket got their name from a Monty Python sketch