› added 5 years ago

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TIL about the White Ship disaster that killed 300 people including the heir to the English throne, and sent England into a succession crisis

1LND TIL the city of Minneapolis has more than 11 miles of “skyway” connecting nearly every building in the downtown area. This includes apartment buildings and even a college, so that some residents never have to leave the system of interconnected structures in the course of their day-to-day lives.
QJeZe TIL of Michael Patterson, a man who jumped into a creek to save a drowning four-year-old girl. He ended up severing his spinal cord during the rescue and paralyzing both of his legs and one of his arms. He also suffered other injuries. He later died in hospital.
Oo5Q1 TIL that pilots departing from California's John Wayne Airport are required by law to cut their engines and pitch nose down shortly after takeoff for about 6 miles in order to reduce noise in the residential area below.
8aOwb TIL: Africa has a "stonehenge" older than Stonehenge. Built "to mark the summer solstice and the arrival of the monsoons," Nabta Playa, "the oldest stone circle in the world" is among "Earth’s oldest astronomical" observatories. Over 7000 years old, it was found mostly-buried in sand in the 1970s.
W7Oo4 TIL that there is only one confirmed attempt by British colonists to infect natives with smallpox. In 1763, native warriors laid siege to Fort Pitt. After negotiations to abandon the fort failed, the British gave the emissaries two blankets and a handkerchief from a smallpox infected patient