› added 5 years ago

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TIL about 9-year old Robert Douglas Spedden, who in 1915 was one of the first pedestrians killed by a car. Three years earlier he had survived the Titanic sinking.

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RRwQ TIL that one of the leading lights of the Gun Control movement had to withdraw his work from publication and had a prestigious national history award rescinded due to false, unethical and fraudulent research
kJnPE TIL hairworms, parasites which infect crickets and control their brain, can extend a male cricket's lifespan by removing his ability to chirp so it's harder for predators and competing crickets to find him. Hairworms may even share their immune system with its host.
d8OgQ TIL The Snow in the Blizzard of 1949 was So Hard and So Deep they Used Dynamite to Blast the Trains Free
rN6b1 TIL: Rice brokers were extremely influential during the Edo period. Rice brokers provided rice loans, set up the Kyoto central rice market, and introduced paper money. However, inflation, the inability of samurai to pay back their loans, and the debasement of rice ended the rice broker profession.
W7oX9 TIL a US congressman once wielded an 18-inch club made from a walrus penis bone in a congressional hearing.