› added 4 years ago

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TIL the City of Boston still maintains a fleet of over 3,000 telegraph fire alarm stations all over the region, with an annual budget of roughly $2 million and a dozen workers keeping the system running. The system has been in continuous use since 1852!

Read more boston.com

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QJkpd TIL That Mark Zuckerberg used failed log-in attempts from Facebook users to break into users private email accounts and read their emails.
6EDNX TIL there is a mud volcano that has been erupting since May 2006 in Sidoarjo, Indonesia. Although it has been contained with levees, mud floodings are still an often recurrance disrupting local highways and villages
Xwgr TIL Shakuntala Devi, an Indian mental calculator,was asked to give the 23rd root of a 201-digit number; she answered in 50 seconds. Her answer was confirmed by calculations done at the US Bureau of Standards for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation.
GARgg Today I learned: The train was invented before the bicycle.
P1nEJ TIL war pigs were used by the Romans because the squeals would scare war elephants into fleeing, and cause them to trample their own armies