› added 3 months ago

59

TIL that older termites are used as suicide bombers.

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neR9B TIL: In the 1990s, two Boeing 737s (one in 1991 near Colorado Springs, the other in 1994 near Pittsburgh) crashed due to a design flaw that let the rudder move on its own without warning, which killed 157 in total. In 1996, a third aircraft experienced the same issue but landed safely in Richmond.
R79R1 TIL of Seki Takakazu, a mathematician described as "Japan's Newton", who independently discovered many results attributed to his European contemporaries, some of which were rediscovered only centuries later.
R7AX9 TIL starting firefighters can earn as little as $12.95 for literally risking their lives every single day.
R7QD4 TIL The last American born into slavery died in 1972 at age 110 after being hit by a car.
E1lvw TIL about the 1916 Black Tom island explosion, one of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions ever. The explosion of 2 million pounds of ammunition and 100K pounds of TNT damaged the nearby Statue of Liberty and was felt in Philadelphia and Maryland. German saboteurs were the likely culprits.