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TIL During the 1863 New York Draft Riots (that was dramatized in Gangs Of New York) The staff of The New York Times averted rioters that were targeting the newspaper with two Gatling guns; one of which was manned by Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, himself.

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b60Lp TIL: about milk in Germany, which strictly defines cows’ quality of life (description in comments)
4kNR6 TIL to end the Gulf War, the USAAF dropped howitzers on bunkers from supersonic fighters.
78Ypx TIL that the first person known to have complete male-to-female gender reassignment surgery was Dora Richter, a German, in 1931.
yV778 TIL that VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program, was also the first "killer app" (a program that makes people buy a computer just to run the software). VisiCalc was so revolutionary, and so powerful, that people bought the $2000 Apple II (the only computer it ran on) to run the $100 application.
LkgY9 TIL that x-ray analysis is commonly applied to ancient paintings in order to reveal corrections, underdrawings and even figures the artist wanted to hide, such as a hidden man in Picassos "Blue Room".