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TIL that Genrich Altshuller, a Soviet engineer, was given a 25-year prison sentence for sending Joseph Stalin a letter explaining a desire to improve Soviet engineering. He later went on to write science fiction books and found a famous engineering school.

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GYrrg TIL Noblesse oblige is generally used to imply that with wealth, power, and prestige come responsibilities. Privilege must be balanced by duty towards those who lack such privilege. It can describe a person taking the blame for something in order to solve an issue or save someone else.
VBwnk TIL that it took a month for Ernő Rubik to solve a wooden block prototype of the Rubik's Cube
R79b1 TIL in 1941 California built a prison for violent inmates where cells were unlocked and there was only a short barbed-wire fence around it
EgJ8W TIL Ancient Egyptians May Have Used Opium and Wine as the World's First Anesthesia—Long Before Modern Medicine!
wLDNM TIL that for the movie "O Brother, Where art Thou?", the cows that were shot and hit by the police car looked so realistic that the American Humane Society wouldn't immediately certify the movie as "No Animals Were Harmed". A representative had to be shown how they were digitally created ten times.