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TIL Oakum, tarred fibre used for caulking, was recycled from old tarred rope by prison labor. A man sentenced to hard labor would be expected to pick apart 6 pounds of rope into Oakum per day.

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9Gmm TIL the only Western academic degree displayed by North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung in his official residence, the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, was a doctorate degree from Kensington University, a “distance learning” diploma mill shut down in 2003 by a court order
dV8B TIL Winston Churchill’s epitaph states, “I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”
ya58 TIL Declassified Documents Prove the US used “Cloud Seeding” to extend the monsoon season during the Vietnam War
mxggM TIL that the pie chart in France is named after the round cheese Camembert. It is is called "un diagramme en Camembert."
79vP TIL that Microsoft bought all the rights to a Corbis stock photo called Bliss, better known as the Windows XP default wallpaper, for over $100k, making it the second largest amount of money ever paid to a photographer for a single photograph at the time of sale.