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TIL of Eugène-François Vidocq, a formal criminal who founded the first Private Detective agency in 1833. He mostly hired ex-convicts. His innovations include taking a plaster cast of a shoe print and introducing undercover work. He claims to have never informed on someone who stole for real need.

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b91ME TIL that Target sent baby supply ads and coupons to a high school girl based on her search history, causing her parents to find out she was pregnant before she told them.
W7o7L TIL If Coca-Cola's inventor had decided to file a patent application in 1892 instead of keeping the recipe a secret, patent protection would have expired long before Pepsi ever came onto the market in 1965. Patent protection lasts 20 years at most. Trade secrets can last forever.
4XyDN TIL: Thanks to a gruesome mistake, a French Canadian Voyageur was shot in the stomach, but later healed and recovered from the wound, scientists were better able to understand the digestive tract thanks to how his wound healed, which allowed probing of his stomach actively digesting.
epZ9b TIL That "RadiThor, an energy drink originally contained radium. A 1oz bottle would sell for about $1 (US) in the 1920's. It was also claimed that it would cure all sorts of ailments.
GYyN5 TIL that a peace flame has been burning in Hiroshima since it was lit in 1964, and will remain lit until all nuclear bombs on the planet are destroyed and the planet is free from the threat of nuclear annihilation.