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TIL The Brooklyn Bridge was inaugurated in 1883 and was considered an engineering marvel at the time. However, rumors of its weakness caused a public panic that led to the death of about 12 people. To restore confidence in the bridge's strength, P.T. Barnum marched 21 elephants and 17 camels across

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a8LgN TIL in 18th-century Naples, spaghetti was a popular street food eaten with bare hands, becoming a tourist attraction as visitors were fascinated by the locals' ability to eat it without forks, and spectacles were even organized by tourists to witness these scenes
WkWyY TIL the reason we bake/roast almost everything at 350° is because the Maillard reaction and caramelization tends to happen between 300° and 350°
ANZ9w TIL in 1856 paleontologist Amanz Gressly discovered a dinosaur named Gresslyosaurus. Years later he suffered a mental break and was institutionalized. When a friend visited him, he found Gressly agonized & hallucinating that he had transformed into the Gresslyosaurus. Gressly died shortly afterwards
b6n70 TIL #EndTheStreakTX, a campaign to go a single day without a death on Texas roads, has been gone unbroken since November 7, 2000.
woyk8 TIL Shogun Tokugawa leyasu decreed William Adams(first western samurai) was dead and that Miura Anjin, a samurai, was born. This action "freed" Adams to serve the Shogunate permanently, making Adams' wife in England a widow. Adams managed to send regular support payments to her after 1613.