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TIL that typically a Boeing 747 carries 416 passengers, but when a group of Ethiopian refugees were evacuated in 1991 they managed to fit 1,122 people on board. They originally planned to board 760 people, but got to 1,122 because “ the passengers were so light”.

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wLJ58 TIL economic and social ties between NYC and the secessionist South were so strong that on January 6, 1861, the Mayor of New York, Fernando Wood called for city to secede from the Union in support of the "Confederacy of which she was the proud Empire City"
GAVJ1 TIL: NYC had a red light district during the Revolutionary War known as "Holy Ground" because it was on land owned by Trinity Church
9Em7 TIL that until the invention of the Linotype machine in 1884, daily newspapers were no larger than eight pages because of the labor required to typeset with moveable type.
BOxW TIL of UCSC grad student Jim Kent who wrote a program to allow the Human Genome Project to assemble and publish the genome. The research was largely motivated by concerns that Celera Genomics, working on a parallel project, would patent the data. Kent’s results were released first by 3 days.
7r9jL TIL: The State name "Idaho" was a made up word by a politician in 1861. He lied and tried to pass it off as a Native American word.