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TIL In the 1970s East Germany had a coffee shortage so they made Vietnam into a supplier. East Germany invested the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars into Vietnam in exchange for half of Vietnam's coffee harvests for 20 years. By the first harvest in 1990 East Germany was already dissolved.

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J1KLB TIL Battle of the Overpass occurred in 1937 when UAW organizers tried to hand out unionization leaflets but were attacked by Ford's quasi-military security service. Ford then tried to destroy the photographic evidence but one photographer managed to sneak some out under the back seat of his car.
wLQk1 TIL that a cat licking somebody may indicate that the cat thinks that the person is its responsibility and part of its family and so it treats the person the way its mother treated it. It thinks the person is his pet, rather than the other way round.
dv09 TIL scorpions are incredibly resilient. Scientists have frozen scorpions overnight, left them in the sun the following day, and when thawed, the arthropod walked away unscathed.
8M7V TIL a study gave LSD to 26 scientists, engineers, and other disciplines, and they produced a conceptual model of a photon, a linear electron accelerator beam-steering device, a new design for the vibratory microtome, and a space probe experiment designed to measure solar properties, amongst others.
VmxG TIL in order to save 140 tonnes of carbon annually in reduced transportation, British supermarket Sainsbury’s shrunk the inner cardboard tube of all their toilet rolls by 11mm.