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TIL Titanic actually had more lifeboats than was required of her. Its 20 lifeboats could only carry 38% of its passengers at full capacity, but safety regulations were so outdated at the time that it legally required only 16 lifeboats.

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7b0x TIL that Tom Hanks is an avid support of NASA’s manned space programs and originally wanted to be an astronaut, but “didn’t have the math”. He was awarded the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award in 2006 for his contributions to raising public awareness of space programs.
Ab5n TIL that “Columbia” was a patriotic term commonly used to describe the United States in the 1880s. It’s why we have the “District of Columbia” and “Columbia University.”
ZW9a TIL: the reason cats and snakes have vertical pupils is because it increases their depth perception while hunting at night while prey animals such as sheep have horizontal pupils so that they may have a panoramic view of their surroundings to watch for predators
1aW5d TIL that the German parliament building in Berlin called the 'Reichstag Dome' has a glass dome above it that people can walk on. It symbolizes the transparency of the German government and that the people are always above the government.
X06dE TIL American Samoans hold U.S. passports mentioning they are U.S. nationals, but not U.S. citizens