› added 3 years ago

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TIL Earth is wider at the Equator, so to make a rotation in one 24-hour period, equatorial regions race nearly 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) per hour. Near the poles, Earth rotates at a sluggish 0.00008 kilometers (0.00005 miles) per hour.

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grOk8 TIL that a dump truck caused a New York City elevated freeway to collapse in 1973. The truck was found to have been 9 tons overloaded and the company operating it was blamed. The contract to clean up the results of the failure was subsequently awarded to the same company.
GY66J TIL: Am-Phu cave in Vietnam is decorated with "hell" themes: sculpted demons "and fanged devils bathed in sinister red light, where hands reach up from the waters below and river monsters threaten to gnash (visitors') souls to bits." It's located under the mountain associated with heaven.
VBkQ TIL: On April 9, 1942 At Madison square garden, 50 elephants in pink tutu’s performed a Ballet.
loKaB TIL Fred Astaire got into show business after his mother planned a then-popular "brother and sister act" in vaudeville with his sister Adele. Fred refused to learn to dance at first, but eventually learned by mimicking his sister's steps
d8w4r Today I Learned about Ray Holmes, an RAF pilot during the Battle of Britain who saved Buckingham Palace from destruction by ramming a German aircraft, nearly killing himself in the process, and ejecting, only to land in a garbage bin.