› added 6 years ago

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TIL the much of the NYC subway system's control signals are still based on hundred year old technology. When parts fail, they must be scavenged from scrapped parts or custom made at great expense.

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78J1P TIL During the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King had originally prepared a different speech than the one we know today. He departed from it after he heard singer Mahalia Jackson cry out: "Tell them about the dream, Martin!". He then partly improvised the now famous "I have a dream" speech.
Z8eZ4 TIL Seth MacFarlane served as executive producer of the Neil deGrasse Tyson-hosted series Cosmos. He was instrumental in providing funding for the series, as well as securing studio support for it from other entertainment execs.
wWxY TIL, from 1860-1916, the British Army required every soldier to have a mustache.
1axGO TIL Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario and Zelda, came up with the idea of Pikmin when gardening. He saw a line of ants carrying leaves towards their nest and wondered what the scene would look like if they were tiny people instead.
KYYMG TIL that a 1982 Harvard study confirmed that Tibetan monks can raise their body temperature with their minds. Practitioners of "g-tummo" yoga demonstrated the ability to raise the temperature of different parts of their bodies through meditation alone.