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TIL that 2 people took 150 elementary children and teachers hostage in Cokeville, Wyoming. The bomb was accidentally detonated in a room full of kids and only the 2 psychopaths died.

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via reddit.com

p8mO4 TIL Roughly 2% of the U.S. population, an estimated 620,000 men, died serving in the American Civil War. As a percentage of today's population the toll would have risen as high as 6 million. For every 3 soldiers killed in battle, 5 more died of disease.
MJpa TIL that in 1885, Edison offered Tesla $50,000 for redesigning his company’s DC generators. After months of work, Tesla inquired about the payment. Edison said he was only joking, replying, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor.” Tesla quit his job shortly after.
yQknl TIL after Hurricane Katrina, 4,500 public school teachers were fired in New Orleans, teacher unions were outlawed, and almost all schools were privatized. The firings were ruled illegal but no one got their jobs back.
VMjBD TIL that Henry Ford had initially lead the movement of shorter working weeks from the entrepreneurial side of things. He (counterintuitively at the time) showed that shorter working hours led to higher productivity.
NaEb TIL A North Carolina town banned the use of solar panels because they thought it would “suck up all the energy from the sun”.