› added 5 years ago

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TIL the biggest infrastructure project in the U.S. ($512 BILLION), the Interstate Highway System, was built and championed by Eisenhower in 1956, because he thought it was virtually impossible to travel US roads after experiencing the German Autobahn in WW2 during his experience as General.

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78k0p TIL Stone Age people used to practice trepanning – an early medical procedure that involved drilling a hole in the skull. The patients didn’t all die. Lots of skulls have been found with partly healed holes.
E1vKx TIL that there is a subspecies of mosquitoes that has adapted to life in the London Underground by neither requiring water to lay its eggs nor hibernating in winter months
E1Kg7 TIL that the Postal Service once printed 3 billion stamps featuring the Statue of Liberty, before realizing that the picture was actually of the Las Vegas replica
LkQDv People are terrified that they’re being exposed to radiation all the time, whether from a distant nuclear accident or the mobile device snuggled against their head. Generally, they are wrong. Here are the most radioactive objects in the world around you, and the truth about which ones cause health problems.
M71GW TIL that the manta ray has the biggest brain and by far the biggest brain-to-mass ratio of any fish and is one of the few animals in the world that may pass the "mirror test" for self-recognition.