› added 12 years ago

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TIL that Harriet Tubman carried a gun to stop runaway slaves from going back to the plantation in order to keep the underground railroad safe.

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via reddit.com

OoEXL TIL that the world's oldest musical instrument is a 5000 year old set of tuned stones found while digging a road in Vietnam in 1949.
JYXb4 TIL Vasily Arkhipov was the sole officer aboard a submarine who refused to authorize a nuclear strike, presumably saving the world from nuclear destruction during the cold war.
PYLJ TIL during the Chernobyl, three engineers volunteered to dive into a pool of radioactive hydrogen peroxide with no working flashlights and open a pipe to stop the reactor from exploding. They succeeded.
V9K4 TIL food banks largely prefer cash donations over canned food drives: for every $1 donated, most food banks can order $4-5 worth of food
GYeNg TIL Frank Epperson invented ice popsicles by accident when she was just 11 years old. It happened when left soda powder and water outside overnight. Two billion popsicles are now sold every year around the world.