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TIL in the 60s, Lady Bird Johnson persuaded her husband to steer a bill through Congress titled The Beautification Act of America. As a result from this law, the insulators, arresters, and transformers on electric poles were painted sky blue/grey.

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oRnmW TIL that an Australian research organization took Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett Packard, Asus, Toshiba and others to court for infringing on its WiFi patents and got them to pay a huge settlement.
ADpv7 TIL that in the earliest surviving depiction of Jesus and the Crucifixion, Jesus is shown as a donkey. The image is a Roman graffito scratched on a wall in Rome somewhere in the 2nd century, apparently to mock Christians.
pYGKb TIL one of the first use of avant-garde technique of tape manipulation in music was the 1955 hit "Jingle Bells" by The Singing Dogs. Using a razor, Carl Weismann cut, then spliced sounds of dog barks together, correcting speed, pitch and melody of the resulting tape. It reached #22 on Billboard.
8e0Qa TIL: There existed elephant duels in SE Asia. Opposing army leaders of equal status would face each other on the battlefield in single combat atop elephants. It was seen as honorable and heroic as it avoided troop losses. The practice died when the Portuguese introduced guns in the 16th century.
mxxPM TIL attaching a huge kite on cargo ships can decrease fuel consumption by 30%