› added 6 months ago

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TIL that the Dodge brothers, of the iconic car brand, got their start manufacturing bicycles in Windsor, Ontario, Canada and manufactured auto parts as a side hustle.

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via reddit.com

dDvmQ TIL that in 1885 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used 300,000 pounds of explosives to annihilate Flood Rock island in New York City's East River as part of clearing Hell Gate for safer navigation. It's been described as "the largest planned explosion before testing began for the atomic bomb".
wopKP TIL Navy SEAL Team 6, the famed covert unit that killed Bin Laden, was named to make US Special Forces seem more plentiful to the Soviets; only SEAL Teams 1 and 2 existed prior.
16XyV TIL that after entering the human body, microplastics will be excreted out through the gastrointestinal tract. The concentration of microplastics in infant feces is ten times higher than that in adults. Microplastics are not only toxic itself but also carriers for many pollutants to enter the body.
RWe8 TIL When Disney bought LucasFilm, they also gained access to the “Holocron” created by Lucas. It contains lists of “17,000 characters in the Star Wars universe inhabiting several thousand planets over a span of more than 20,000 years.”
8ak0a TIL that JRR Tolkien did not like the title The Return of the King as he felt it revealed too much of the story. He preferred The War of the Ring.