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TIL The first stenotype machine (the machine used by court reporters to type shorthand) was invented in 1830.

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l7517 TIL France detonated its 1st atomic bomb, the Blue Jerboa, on Feb. 13, 1960 in Saharan Algeria. This was the 1st of 17 nuclear weapons detonations that occurred in the area between 1960 & 1966. The Blue Jerboa was 3 times more powerful than the atomic bomb the US dropped on Nagasaki, Japan in 1945.
XEgB8 TIL Before antibiotics, patients with Tuberculosis were sent to Colorado Springs as it was believed dry air and sunshine helped in the treatment. TB sanatoriums, or small hut-like structures with ventilation, still litter backyards and properties around the city.
awvJM TIL Gladiators didn't normally fight to the death, as they were too expensive to prepare and maintain, making it to risky of a business to sustain. For there to be a fight to the death, a sponsor would have to pay extra and also compensate the lanista for the lost gladiator.
78DPb TIL of the Sampit Conflict (2001), in which indigenous Dayak went back to their headhunting ways and massacred/beheaded hundreds of migrant Madurese people in the city of Sampit. Around 500-1000 people were killed and 100-700 were beheaded.
yQo5w TIL of Philoxenus, a Court Poet for the Tyrant of Syracuse, who was jailed & sent to the quarries for voicing a bad opinion about his poetry, but later pardoned, & brought back for another reading. When the tyrant asked how he liked it, he turned to the guards & said "take me back to the quarries."