› added 4 years ago

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TIL of the Montparnasse derailment in Paris. A train entered the station too fast, crashed through a wall, and fell 33 feet before landing on its nose and killing a woman standing below. A guard was fined 25 francs as he'd been preoccupied with paperwork and failed to apply the emergency handbrake.

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M7XX8 TIL During the American Revolutionary War the French had to defend their trading posts from the British since French allied themselves with the American colonists revolting against the British Empire, forcing Indians to fight amongst each other in India in a civil war over the trading posts.
XEGaE TIL - The first known case of Gigantism is alleged to be that of King Sa-Nakht, who ruled in Egypt in the 3rd dynasty more than 4700 years ago. His height was around 6ft 1.6 inches (1.87m) while the average height for men around that time was 5ft 6 inches (1.7m)
GLX1 TIL that male soldiers in the German military started growing breasts on their left sides due to repeated smacking of their rifles against their chests during precision drills. The focused strikes stimulated the production of hormones causing breast tissue to grow in over 70% of the soldiers.
kO0xg TIL Goodhart's Law, the principle that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. For example, when a government tries to bring down unemployment figures to demonstrate how well the economy is doing, unemployment figures stop being a good measure of the economy.
5wyk TIL Chuck Norris’ s real name is Carlos.