› added 8 years ago

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TIL that Cinco de Mayo is in celebration of the day Mexico defeated the French, at the Battle of Puebla. Where France were trying to collect on previous loans Mexico stopped making payments on.

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GAlpJ TIL Alexander the Great was sieging the island of Tire until he decided to turn it into a Peninsula
4JnR TIL that Washington DC’s metro system is plagued by unstable funding & poor safety maintenance. The control room has 1000+ ignored alarms a day, while train operators pee on the track & one who, due to poor driver-control room relations, reportedly disabled trains mid-run on purpose.
9YwAr It happens to everyone. You might be walking back from grabbing a drink at your favourite neighbourhood watering hole, strolling through a dense forest, or even merely getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom when you hear that squishy sound. An ant, a cockroach, a beetle, a centipede, or whatever it used to be, is stuck to the bottom of your foot. Did the bug feel pain when it exploded? Did it feel fear? Did it even have time to be scared? If it had time, would it have done something or said something to any of its bug buddies?
M7460 TIL in the late 60’s when checking into hotels, Paul and Linda McCartney would use the aliases Mr and Mrs. Ramone to avoid Beatlemania and the press. When Douglas Colvin (Dee Dee Ramone) read about this, he called his band “The Ramones”, and it became one of the most legendary punk bands of all time
RAEj TIL the world’s first automated grocery store was introduced in 1937 to give customers an arcade-like experience while shopping. Food was purchased by turning a key in a machine, which also activated the machine’s pinball lights for added effect.