› added 10 years ago

100

TIL that concrete is sometimes imbued with special bacteria, allowing itself to self-heal and strengthen through calcification.

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GnLG TIL Abraham Lincoln supported colonizing blacks in South America, or sending them back to Africa.
ADvv7 TIL Isaac Singer, the inventor of the Singer Sewing machine had 24 children across the USA, UK and France. Six of these children came from a relationship with Isabella Eugenie Boyer, a 19 year old French woman that the Statue of Liberty was based on. He left $13m estate to his 20 surviving children.
8Z0V TIL that the Empire State Building only took a little over a year for its construction to complete (410 days — twelve days ahead of schedule).
GGe7 TIL in 1923, Jockey Frank Hayes had a heart attack and died in the middle of a race. His horse won the race while Hayes’ body remained in the saddle, making him the first and only jockey to win a race after death.
5Y57Q Til of the Cagots, a minority population in Europe in medieval times. They were shunned, hated, and segregated from entering taverns or touching food in markets. They were not an ethnic or religious group and were indistinguishable from other people, and no one knows why they were so despised.