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TIL the Lincoln Highway (1910s) made driving across America easier. However, muddy or flooded roads were expected and drivers needed camping gear. The road guide included tips for each town. E.g. Fish Springs, Utah travelers could "build a sagebrush fire" for a local team to find/rescue them.

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ney6d TIL that Napoleon's first language was not French. He grew up speaking Corsican and Italian and did not learn French until age 10. Throughout his life he spoke French with a heavy Corsican/Italian accent and never mastered French spelling.
awRmM TIL It took the steam engine to make the horse popular and affordable. As rail, canals, ferries, and ports brought more and more goods across continents and oceans, horse populations increased exponentially to collect and distribute all those goods, becoming "the backbone of 19th century life".
VMLVm TIL on Saturday night (30 March '12), the Chief of the Israeli Navy gave a surprise order for 3 ships to prepare to leave for a 10-day exercise; the men on the ships worked all night only to learn the next morning (1 April '12) that it was all an April Fool's Day joke.
VB0L0 TIL of the sinking of the MV Doña Paz and MT Vector, the deadliest disaster at sea during peacetime. 26 people lived and 4,385 people dived. Many survivors were covered in burns after diving into flaming water.
j6oyj TIL Hydrogen-alpha solar telescopes work thanks to an optical device called an etalon, made up of two semi-reflective, optically flat plates. The flatness of the plates and how parallel they are defines the quality of the view of the Sun, which has an ‘orange peel’ appearance through the telescope