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TIL the Rose Parade in Pasadena, CA was started in 1890 as a way to convince East Coast residents to move to California by "showcasing California's mild weather" by proving the "flowers are still blooming and oranges are about to bear."

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P1KGn TIL In the 1960s, Washington D.C.'s poor areas were plagued by severe rat problems until Julius Hobson began catching them by trapping enormous rats, and attaching the cage to his car’s roof and drove to affluent districts where he warned of setting the rodents free, spurring rat control measures.
xreD TIL that take-out restaurants existed in ancient Rome, with service counters opening onto the street to pick up food. More than 200 existed in Pompeii, and most of its homes lacked dining or kitchen areas, suggesting that cooking at home was unusual.
woodY TIL With flight director Gene Kranz, it took a $5 million campaign to restore the original Mission Control room at NASA Johnson Space Center in 2019, with thousands of backers from 25 countries. Flight control consoles were restored and wall displays were reactivated with Apollo-era projections
XE8D6 TIL of Vincent Chin, a Chinese-American man who was murdered in 1982 by two laid-off auto workers. Blaming the increasing popularity of Japanese cars in America for their redundancy, and the US' auto industry struggles, the men assumed Chin was Japanese, and beat him to death in a nightclub.
OoAYe TIL that, in addition to books, France operates a legal deposit scheme for perfumes, where a copy of every new fragrance has to be sent to a library for preservation.