› added 5 years ago

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TIL Porsche tried to replace its flagship car, the 911, with the bigger, more luxurious 928, but people kept buying the iconic 911. The 911 still hadn’t had a major redesign since its birth in 1963, and only received one in 1998, three years after the 928 went out of production.

78WyZ TIL construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, which was built with the help of pressurised caissons (a watertight retaining structure), resulted in numerous workers being either killed or permanently injured by decompression sickness or caisson disease named after this design.
7rAvx TIL that for centuries there has been a secret wing to a museum in Naples, where all the erotic art found in Pompeii was locked away. The cabinet remained closed for more than a hundred years – the doorway even bricked up at one point – and was only fully opened to the public in 2000.
aw140 TIL a pod of dolphins saved a group of swimmers from a great white shark by herding the swimmers together and doing tight circles around them to create a barrier. The dolphins kept this up for 40 minutes until the shark lost interest and was safe for the swimmers to swim to shore.
OoaLL TIL that rescue dogs tasked with finding survivors at Ground Zero quickly became depressed because they weren't able to find any, causing their handlers to hide in the rubble and give the dogs someone to find.
gnB4 TIL Annie Taylor was the first person to successfully descend Niagara Falls. She used a custom barrel stuffed with a mattress. She tested it by sending a cat over the falls. It survived and 2 days later she made the journey…on her 63rd birthday.