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TIL the practice of selling one’s kidney for profit in Iran is legal and regulated by the government. It is estimated that 1,400 Iranians sell one of their kidneys annually. Iran is the only country in the world that allows this and has neither a waiting list nor a shortage of available organs.

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OEo6 TIL that China invented fireworks, but Italy gave them color. Colors are created using metallic powders. Calcium makes orange, sodium makes yellow, and barium makes green. Also, cylindrical tubes create whistling sounds, aluminum flakes make hissing noises, and flash powder makes the loud “booms.”
g8vb TIL that because Abraham Lincoln grew a beard (at the request of an 11 year old), Milton Bradley’s business of selling lithographs of the clean-shaven presidential nominee failed. Soon after, Bradley developed the boardgame, Life.
m1nlE TIL The serial fraudster Charles W. Morse (AKA 'Ice King' from his New York ice monopoly) received a pardon from President Taft. The pardon was because Morse had Bright's Disease and would likely die in prison, it was later revealed that Morse had been consuming soap and chemicals to fake illness.
wrN8 TIL only 29 people were caught trying to board planes with marijuana at the Denver International Airport in 2014, and all were allowed to board their planes after throwing out the weed.
KbPw TIL the ellipsis (three dots…) is it’s own Unicode character (U+2026). Try highlighting just one of these dots… This is why you get interesting spacing when typing out strings of periods on Microsoft Word, it tries to autocorrect 3 periods in a row into ellipses thus slightly changing the spacing.