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TIL in 1975 Otrag, a West-German company, developed cheap transport rockets. The USSR became nervous, and American corporations concerned about low-cost competitors. American media came to use crude Soviet propaganda to sabotage them, making Otrag evicted from their Congolese base (more in comments)

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eYmk TIL Mel Brooks did not have a starring role in “Young Frankenstein” (which he directed and co-wrote with Gene Wilder) because Wilder wouldn’t let him, saying: “You have a way of breaking the fourth wall, whether you want to or not. I don’t want too much to be, you know, a wink at the audience.“
ADYbd TIL There are more than 500,000 pieces of debris floating or orbiting around Earth now. Most of them originated as parts of satellites and rockets.
grMED TIL that The Secret Life of Pets 2 was released the same weekend as X-Men: Dark Phoenix and Pets outperformed X-Men, making it the first time an X-Men film did not top the box office the week of its release.
ne6R7 TIL A bad grape harvest in 1985 led to Austrian wine producers adding antifreeze to their wines in order to lessen the sour taste, collapsing the Austrian wine market.
kO9nW TIL in 2019 an iconic piece of Flint graffiti was vandalized with another graffiti - a Grand Trunk Western Railroad bridge changed to read "Grand Funk Railroad" had graffiti painted over the "F" and one of the GFR band members' names painted there.