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TIL in 1918, the German Army ordered a Jewish census of it's troops to prove that Jews avoided combat. Instead, the census proved the opposite that Jews were over-represented in fighting positions and in the army as a whole.

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YkBP TIL in the midst of the misery of the Great Depression and Prohibition, FDR signed legislation permitting the sale of some alcoholic beverages saying, “I think this would be a good time for a beer.”
4566 TIL that an Australian family used a large black crystal as a doorstop for over a decade before realizing that it held a 733-carat black sapphire, the Black Star of Queensland
wXZo TIL That NASA recorded the radio signature of Earth and converted it to an audible “Earthsong”
9nm TIL there is a serious dispute as to the proper name for the body of water commonly called the Persian Gulf, and that Iran takes it so seriously that they deny airspace to commercial airlines unless they officially acknowledge Iran’s preferred name for it.
xV80D TIL that gays in Hong Kong started using the word "comrade" (同志) in the '80s as a way to spite the Chinese Communist Party for its mistreatment of sexual minorities in the mainland. Today, it is one of the primary terms LGBT people in the Chinese-speaking world use to refer to one another.