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TIL a poorly designed wireless communications system contributed to deaths of 343 firefighters on 9/11. Back then, emergency services ran many different communication systems which couldn't talk to each other, hindering the evacuation of the firefighters and the overall emergency response.

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v10dx TIL that French queen Marie Antoinette was offered in 1787 a boy from Senegal as a servant but instead taking him as servant she adopted him as her son and baptized as Jean. During the revolution Jean was separated from the royal family and left by revolutionaries to die on streets at age of 10.
wLG08 TIL Stephen Hawking spent his final days attempting to solve the parallel universe mystery and updated his paper just ten days before his death
wd77 TIL The man who accused Michael Jackson of molesting his son in a 1993 lawsuit claimed his son revealed he had been molested while under anesthesia during a dental procedure he (the father) was preforming. The son was later granted a permanent restraining order against his father.
X0gJD TIL after John Ruffo was convicted and sentenced to 17 years in prison, his bail was set at $10 million. Most of his immediate family put their houses up as collateral to make bail. Ruffo then disappeared and the homes of his wife, mother, mother-in-law, and others were seized by the government.
1vr4 TIL that children’s author Roald Dahl was given a ‘Viking funeral’, and buried with wine, snooker cues, pencils and a power saw