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TIL that during the cold war, both the United States and the USSR had designated 'Signal Cities' in the opposing countries that, in the event of an escalation of hostilities, would be nuked to indicate strong resolve. It was called 'nuclear signaling'. Kiev and Boston were the cities.

BgEaD TIL about the North Sea Flood of 1953, when a night time storm surge overwhelmed sea defences in the Netherlands, north-west Belgium, and eastern England and Scotland, with a mean flood height of 5.6m/18'4" over sea level, resulting in over 2,000 deaths on land and over 200 at sea
RD1 TIL Doctor Seuss’s first book took 27 publisher rejections before it finally found a taker, Chicken Soup for the Soul was passed on by over 100, A Time to Kill by 26, and George Orwell was told Animal Farm would never sell because “it is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.”
v0n4 TIL the cost of college textbooks in the US have risen more than 1,000 percent since 1977, even faster than tuition, health care costs and housing prices, all of which have risen faster than inflation.
4k45N TIL the US government in the 1930's tried to make a canal called the "Cross-Florida Barge Canal" that cut through the Florida peninsula to create a shortcut from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean. It was going to have a series of locks like the Panama Canal. It was shut down by Nixon.
J1jR8 TIL that the Woolworth Company (aka Woolworth's) did not go out of business but rather just changed their name to that of their most profitable division: Foot Locker