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TIL: Portland Oregon's first bicycling boom ended starting in 1900 when a group of prostitutes began to ride them and solicit customers on their rides about town. Soon women riding bikes were assumed to be prostitutes and other women stopped riding.

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LQyVZ TIL that the first written mention of the card game "Blackjack" was in the novel "Rinconete y Cortadillo", written by Miguel de Cervantes (Author of "Don Quixote" ). likely because he was a gambler. The game is used by the protagonists to cheat people out of money.
Wk7x8 TIL that Key West declared war on the U.S. and then hit a U.S. soldier on the head with stale bread then immediately surrendered
b6X57 TIL of spy novels that were so accurate that politicians read them to learn about the real world. Real spies told Gérard de Villiers—creator of the popular French "SAS" series—of their secret acts, then enjoyed reading about them in fictionalized form.
OGlBL TIL Uday Hussein murdered his father’s valet with an electric carving knife in front of guests at a party
oBOjA TIL Margaret Atwood's popular novel "The Handmaid's Tale," was first adapted into a film back in 1990.