› added 11 years ago

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TIL while trying to eclipse the Eiffel Tower for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, an inventor named J. B. McComber proposed a 8,947 foot tower which would have rails extending from the top, leading all the way to New York City, Baltimore, and Boston, on which fair-goers could toboggan all the way home

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5VOyQ TIL Research shows that parents' education level has a significant impact on their children's success
yVGRp TIL: Project Orion was a project by DARPA and NASA to use nukes to propel spacecraft supported by Von Braun , the biggest design was the "Super" Orion which hoods 1080 nukes, weigh 8 million tons, and was described as an interstellar ark. However, problems included nuclear fallout on Earth.
N7E6N TIL that workers in Cuban cigar factories in the early 1900s employed 'lectores' to read to them while they worked. The reading materials were often literary or political, ranging from socialists newspapers to Shakespearean plays - sometimes leading to clashes with anti-communist factory owners.
J11Vk TIL that Omar bin Laden the fourth-eldest son of Osama bin Laden is an artist and author and his art is displayed in exhibitions in France, where he resides
J1nMv TIL that baby squirrels are called kittens