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TIL that in 1841, Richard Beard opened England's first professional photography studio, pioneering the commercialization of photography by securing exclusive rights to the daguerreotype process in England and Wales

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9wvep TIL the concept of sister cities originated in WW2 as a way of establishing solidarity between allied cities that had been devastated by fighting and air raids. The first 'twinned' cities were Coventry, England and Stalingrad in the Soviet Union in 1942 as both were extensively destroyed in the war
mx8gM TIL that blackjack basic strategy (the optimal strategy for winning) was developed by four US army engineers, who called themselves the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In 2008 they were inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame.
NXe7N TIL that John Parr's hit song St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) is only vaguely about the movie, but is specifically about (and directly inspired by) Canadian athlete Rick Hansen. Hansen was going around the world in his wheelchair to raise awareness of spinal cord injuries at the time.
rRQ7y TIL Plumpy'nut is a peanut-based paste that delivers all of the nutrition including vitamins and protein for a malnourished child. It has a two year shelf life, requires no refrigeration or preparation, and is "surprisingly tasty"
P4nV TIL Researchers at Yale did a study on teaching monkeys to use money to buy things like grapes, jello and other things. It turns out once the monkeys learned they could buy things with the money they started paying females monkeys for sex, who in turn immediately bought some sweets with it.