› added 7 years ago

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TIL Companies such as General Motors (fronting as National City Lines) bought out companies that operated electric streetcars across the USA and fully replaced them with buses, which were reliant on foreign oil.

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M7N17 TIL that Anglo-Indians (Indians with British ethnic origin) have 2 reserved seats in India's Parliament (Lok Sabha)
W7QZ8 TIL of storm chasers, people that actively search out storms and extreme weather to conduct meteorological research on the field, to report tornados, storms, hurricanes and other high-impact weather conditions to weather bureaus.
xVeZo TIL that practicing shooting in the desert in Arizona, David M. Grundman, 27, shot a giant saguaro cactus. The 7 meters tall plant got chopped off, crushing him to death.
oBQd8 TIL that in 1982, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was rushed to hospital when a fish bone became stuck in her throat, and she ended up having an operation to remove it. Being a keen fisher, she calmly joked when it was done: "The salmon have got their own back".
Wx4X TIL Swedish Navy detected underwater sounds suspected to be hostile Russian submarines in the 80s. The suspicion escalated to a diplomatic conflict between Sweden and Russia. It turned out later that these sounds came from fish farts, a discovery which led to the Ig Nobel Prize.