› added 10 years ago

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TIL The white elephant gift exchange’s name is derived from a revenge tactic the King of Siam used to financially ruin those that displeased him.

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Wr69 TIL that “baby carrots” are almost all just regular carrots cut and reshaped to look like small carrots. It was a marketing gimmick.
M4m0 TIL Astronaut Steven Swanson – a big Firefly fan – took copies of Firefly and Serenity to the ISS in 2007 and added them to the space station’s movie library.
xVBZ1 TIL that the Allied Forces had planned to bomb the Toyota factory but the company was saved by the end of WWII
wLX46 TIL: The IRS uses two 58 year old computer systems for its Individual and Business Master Files, and they are written in assembly code, with data stored on tapes. The Individual Master File is the source where taxpayer accounts are updated, taxes are assessed, and refunds are generated.
oRdmr TIL about the 1991 Andover tornado. The F4 tornado made a direct hit on McConnell AFB and narrowly missed striking 10 B-1B bombers, 2 of which were armed with nuclear weapons