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TIL one of the world’s oldest recorded jokes dates to 1600 B.C. and is included in a political treatise inscribed on a roll of papyrus: “How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish”.

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o6mE TIL that there is an upside down traffic signal in Syracuse, New York because the Local Irish kids didn’t want British red above Irish green.
Y70kx TIL U.S. railroads adopted the Standard Time System on the "Day of Two Noons." On Nov. 18, 1883, the Univ. of Pittsburgh's observatory telegraphed railroads at the exact moment of high noon under the 90th meridian line to reset/synchronize their clocks, dissolving the 100+ timezones previously used.
X0mbr TIL that Julius Fucik wrote the "Entrance of the Gladiators" as a military march for the imperial Czech army, he was inspired by bloody Roman gladiatorial fighting. Today it is know for being the entrance music for clowns at the circus.
ZpGVv TIL that SR71A "start carts" exhausted USA's junkyards of 400 cubic inch Buick V8 engines
mxe4y TIL of underground cock-fighting arenas in Miami, Fl. Rings included small boxes with glass windows that dramatically lowered the competing cocks into the arena at the start of fights. A cock-fighting referee was even murdered at one, a pouch of ref equipment hanging from his neck.