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TIL all steel produced after 1945 is contaminated with background radiation because of the use of nuclear weapons. Such steel is unusable for many scientific and medical applications and steel made before 1945, often taken from sunken battleships, must be used instead.

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b9B9N TIL a village in Mexico, besieged by crime and corruption, cleaned up by blockading the town from criminals and kicking out the mayor, police, and all political parties. Electioneering is banned. Now, the town is self-governed and policed, offers recycling services, and protects the local forests.
Meog7 TIL Moments before taking office, Brazillian president Itamar Franco handed senators a piece of paper on which he had listed his personal net worth and properties. A popular president, his approval rating reached 60 percent and it soared to nearly 80–90 percent at end of term
VBXJQ TIL back in 1945, a physicist at Kodak in Rochester discovered the secret Manhattan project atomic testing 2000 miles away in New Mexico due to straw containing traces of Cerium-141. The straw was sourced from milling plants in Indiana and Iowa that was used to make the film packaging.
vMPK TIL that hours before his death Edgar Allen Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore. He was incoherent, wearing another man’s clothes, and unable to explain how he got there. The cause of his death is an unsolved mystery.
yGmX TIL they didn’t know how strong the blast of the first prototype of the atomic bomb before detonating it in the New Mexico desert. They even had pre-prepared press releases for every event from ‘loud noise’ to 'among the dead were’.