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TIL that the Space Race of the 1960’s lead to NASA giving IBM a $26.6 million contract to create an one of the most powerful computers ever in a compact form. This lead to the development of the microprocessor and the level of power computers have today.

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mxJWM TIL that when Alfred Hitchcock was five his father sent him to the police with a note, the policeman looked at the note and locked him in jail for few minutes. This experience left him with lifelong fear of policemen and he wouldn't even drive a car in case he got a parking ticket.
9wLPp TIL that during the peak of their powers about 10% of the entire Japanese population were samurais. Due to their large numbers nearly all Japanese alive today are descended from samurai
loxpA TIL on Valentine's Day of 1884, just 36 hours after the birth of their only daughter, Alice, future U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt held his wife as she passed away from undiagnosed Bright's disease. Just hours before, in the same house, he had already said a final goodbye to his mother, Martha.
Lk1dr TIL of "promession", an elaborate decomposition system that takes a body, freezes it, vibrates it to dust, and dehydrates it, to result in the most eco-friendly form of burial ever devised.
rRG6d TIL the most successful and feared allied spy of WWII, Virginia Hall, was an American woman with a prosthetic leg. She escaped France on foot through the Pyrenees mts, re-entered before D Day, and organized havoc behind the Nazi lines.