› added 3 years ago

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TIL about Kelly Pilcher, a young woman from Texas, who needed to have a rib removed. After the surgery succeeded, she took her removed rib to a knifemaker, and had it made into a castration knife.

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wGa7 TIL that the pledge of allegiance in schools was conceived by a businessman who wanted to sell flags.
oBZO7 TIL Doris Miller was a cook who saved lives and gunned down Japanese warplanes while serving on a ship during WW2. He had no previous training with an anti-aircraft gun and was awarded the Navy Cross and Purple Heart. Despite his heroism, he was assigned as a cook on Liscome Bay and died by torpedo.
9wLRm TIL in 2012, a computer history museum in California sent a team to Sparkler Filters, a company in Texas, to try to coax them into selling their IBM 402 with Model 129 key punch that was being used for accounting work and inventory. In 2013, the company was still using the machine.
m5Pv TIL that 98% of adoptions in Japan are of males aged 25-30, so that family businesses can remain within the family.
byVQ TIL: Blood type is so important in Japan, you can be hired (or fired) for it, as well as buy blood-type-specific products like condoms that “are all the same, but contain different instructions for each blood group”