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TIL that in 1953, a North Korean fighter pilot defected to South Korea with his MiG-15 and was rewarded $100,000 from the United States

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EdP0 TIL the worse genocide (number wise) in modern times was not the Holocaust, but the genocide by Belgium in the Congo at the turn of the century (somewhere around 10 million killed).
1rND TIL A 2-year study that linked Ecstasy to Parkinsons was retracted from the journal Science after the authors realized they had accidentally used meth instead.
16B8P TIL that 30 years after cocaine was first isolated from the coca plant, it was first tested as an anesthetic. In 1884, Austrian ophthalmologist Karl Koller instilled a 2% solution of cocaine into his own eye and tested its effectiveness by pricking his eye with a needle.
J1Ej TIL that the “root” in Root Beer is from the sassafras tree, the same main ingredient in Ecstasy.
MElK TIL Due to difficulties importing the necessary ingredients to make Coca-Cola syrup into Nazi Germany, Coca-Cola company decided to make a new product with the available ingredients at that time, the product is called Fanta.