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TIL - Nikola Tesla toyed with the idea of a “world wireless system” in the early 1900s, and visionary thinkers like Paul Otlet and Vannevar Bush conceived of mechanized, searchable storage systems of books and media in the 1930s and 1940s.

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0wY4y TIL: Rural Indiana lore has long claimed that much of the world's first-ever Ferris wheel was recycled and made into a bridge by farmer J.D. Dunn. Dissenting opinion says the salvaged metal came from the world expos of either 1893 or 1904.
XNJX TIL that women who went to Harvard and graduated from there before 1999, weren’t allowed to receive a Harvard degree. They received a “Radcliffe University” degree instead.
j6Bbn TIL d'Armond Speers tried to teach his son the Klingon language, used by the Klingons in the Star Trek series, as a first language. The boy answered mostly in English which his mother spoke to him and at the age of 5 stopped answering his father when he spoke Klingon.
rR61W TIL about Radithor, radioactive water sold as medicine. It was owned and produced by a college dropout, who marketed it as "A Cure for the Living Dead" and "Perpetual Sunshine". It notably killed a man in 1932, who was buried in a lead coffin, and was still highly radioactive when exhumed in 1965.
9YAP6 TIL long-time professional baseball pitcher Satchel Paige, who debuted in the MLB at the age of 42, would sometimes instruct his infielders to sit down behind him, and then he would strike out the next three batters.