› added 1 year ago

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TIL The UK used to have Slam-door trains, passengers had to slam the doors closed when the train was about to depart. Some slam-door trains had doors that could only be opened from the outside, so passengers had to lean out of the window to reach the outside door handle

VBE4m TIL that mathematician Mike Keith wrote a 10,000-word book (consisting of short stories, poetry, puzzles) in which the number of letters in successive words encodes the first 10,000 digits of pi.
loOWK Til- Diego de Landa: Historians describe him as a cruel and fanatical priest who led a violent campaign against idol worship. he burned almost all the Mayan manuscripts (codices) that would have been very useful in deciphering Mayan script.
d8kVK TIL David Bowie's Heroes was recorded with one microphone 22cm (9 inches) away from him, another one 6m (20 feet) away, and the last one 15m (50 feet) away, so that he'd have to adjust his tone in different parts of the song (in the 6 minute album version, link in comments)
m5WP TIL: The first item sold on ebay was a broken laser pointer, and when asked in an email by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar if he was aware that the laser pointer was broken, the buyer replied that “I’m a collector of broken laser pointers.”
a8E7J TIL that during WWII, Ford's mile-long assembly line at ‘Willow Run Plant” produced B-24’s at a peak rate of nearly one every hour (~63min). A symbol of American industrial might, exemplifying how industry (and some 6 Million women) pivoted to support the war effort, vital to Allied victory: