› added 9 years ago

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TIL that after a great emotional shock, you can die suddenly due to an abnormal hreat rhythm. You can die from a broken heart.

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d8kQK TIL that in the US, Americans would raise their right hand in an upward direction (similar to a Nazi salute) when they recited the pledge of allegiance. It was repealed by Congress in 1942 (for obvious reasons) to have the right hand over the heart as we know it today.
8Wk8 TIL that when the Brazilian battleship São Paulo was being towed across the Atlantic to be scrapped, her towlines were snapped by a storm and she drifted away. Despite British and American aircraft scouring the Atlantic for her, no sign of her or her 8 crew members were ever found.
kJdN4 TIL: American inventor William Richardson created an enhanced swimming apparatus around 1880, enabling users to reach speeds between 4 and 6 miles per hour. The device utilized a central longitudinal shaft to transfer cranking movements of hands and feet to a four-bladed propeller.
gMNR8 TIL The German candy "Werther's Original", was purposefully marketed in the 1990s as being a candy that grandparents would give to their grandchildren.
6EMkZ TIL Dr. Freeman was a physician who had a loboto-mobile that travelled across the country and he performed lobotomies by hammering an ice pick into the eye sockets of the patients without the use of anesthesia.