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TIL In WWII the Allies used the price of oranges in Paris as an indicator of whether railroad bridges had been bombed successfully.

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R5NVQ TIL that one of the world’s largest species of cockroach is rightfully named “M. Longipennis”
neo07 TIL that Ferdinand Porsche stole several design elements of Volkswagen Beetle from an Austrian engineer named Hans Ledwinka of Tatra, a Czech car company. Tatra took legal action, but Hitler invaded Austria, seized its factory, and banned the car. The case was settled by VW after the war.
1YRO TIL: When Four Loko first came out in 2005 it contained wormwood, the psychoactive in absinthe. They removed it after a year to cut costs, and instead focused on higher alcohol content and flavor.
R5o8Q TIL Merian C. Cooper, director of the original "King Kong", served in Poland during Polish-Bolshevik war as a member of volunteer squadron of American pilots.
v1NW8 TIL the Turkish Straits crisis was an opening salvo of the Cold War, as the Soviet Union tried to take over two key channels in order to control Black Sea naval traffic. Stalin threatened to invade Turkey from the Balkans, prompting the Truman Doctrine of capitalist aid that put the country in NATO