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TIL the reason public trams died out in American cities is because they were forced to subsidize infrastructure for cars and allow them to use tram-lines as roads thereby slowing down all rail networks, making them uncompetitive.

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xVRjk TIL that on February 7 1981, a Tupolev Tu-104 passenger jet crashed during take off from Pushkin Airport near Leningrad, Russia, resulting in the death of all 50 people on board, including 16 Soviet admirals and generals, among them the commander of the Pacific Fleet.
jN90N TIL During the Middle Ages, small triangular-shaped stones — thought to be the tongues of snakes turned to stone by Saint Paul — were highly sought after as cures for poison and plagues. Centuries later, the “tongue stones” were identified as fossilized shark teeth.
xVQQ7 TIL that the rarest stamp in the world (the 1856 British Guiana 1c magenta) - of which only one specimen exists - has broken the world record stamp price each of the last four times it has been sold. It was sold for 6s, £120, £150, $36,000, $40,000, $280,000, $935,000, and most recently $9,480,000
gr66X TIL that the children’s song “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” is a sanitized version of “Do Your Balls Hang Low?”, which was popular with British soldiers in WWI. General Douglas Haig once heard a column of soldiers singing it and went to berate their commander, only to find the commander singing along.
7ryJO TIL during WW2, the US Navy had two freshwater aircraft carriers on the Great Lakes to train its pilots