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TIL During the 1920s and 30s planes still needed to have their propellers spun manually but were getting too large to do it by hand safely. So trucks were fitted with the Hucks Starter device to help start the propeller engine.

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NXEnN TIL the "ampersand" character is intended to depict the two characters of the Latin word "et", meaning "and", that it was once considered the 27th letter of the alphabet, and that it's name comes from the phrase "and per se and".
4X7k6 TIL that a 61yo Californian man Gregory McFadden after suffering for more than a decade with a medical condition that rendered him unable to sleep and eat properly decided to commit suicide by jumping off a helicopter mid-flight. However, he survived the jump and later died at the hospital.
e0ZaE TIL Research on Ants with barcode tags shows that Ants take sick days. When some members of the colony are exposed to pathogens, they spend less time in the nest.
lZrV TIL of Black Bart, the “gentleman robber” of the Wild West, who’d rob stagecoaches, leaving behind poems like: “I’ve labored long and hard for bread, For honor, and for riches, But on my corns too long you’ve tread, You fine-haired sons of bitches.”
R7r71 TIL That Despite it consistently ranking among the lowest in GDP per capita, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has an estimated $24 trillion in untapped minerals, having 70% of the world's coltan, a third of it's cobalt, over 30% of its diamond reserves, and a tenth of its copper.