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TIL Charles Steinmetz, the Wizard of Schenectady, listened to a problem generator for two days before marking a spot and telling engineers to replace sixteen windings from a field coil. He itemized the $10,000 invoice thusly: Marking spot - $1; Knowing where to mark - $9,999.

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W7ge4 TIL that the tallest tree ever measured wasn’t actually a redwood. It was an Australian mountain ash. Which was recorded at a height of over 130 meters!
P1J8Z TIL the world record for the longest time without blinking is 1 hour and 31 minutes, which was set by Anand Haridas on July 12, 2021
yY8M TIL Poor white southerners in American South, who were viewed in the North as lazy and stupid, were actually victim to a hookworm epidemic that turned them into listless imbeciles. Up to 40% were infected in the early 1900s.
rZvy TIL The ThyssenKrupp Elevator company is building their own skyscraper just to be able to test new elevator designs
OoAoX TIL The name "Sri Lanka" does not come from the fact that it is by far the biggest island off India's coast (Lanka just means "island"). The honorific "Sri" came with the independence movement in British Ceylon. So the name doesn't mean "Lord Island" or "Great Island" but rather "Sovreign Island".