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TIL in Delaware, license plate numbers can be traded between individuals. Numbers 4 and up are eligible for trade, and lower digit numbers can go for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 2008, the number 6 sold for $675,000.

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PYZmE TIL about Vickrey auction, a type of sealed-bid auction. Bidders submit written bids without knowing the bid of the other people in the auction. The highest bidder wins, but the price paid is the second-highest bid. This was first described academically by Nobel winner William Vickrey in 1961.
PYEyE TIL That in 1973 IBM offered its UPC bar code proposal to the grocery industry for free. The industry accepted a very close standard to their proposal. However, IBM also made the first technology capable of reading the bar codes, and made tons of money selling the equipment to grocery stores.
OoOWY TIL that in 1969, the Penn Central Railroad Co. planned to build a tower on top of Grand Central which would have required removal of a portion of the station's facade. The NYC Landmark Preservation Commission rejected the design, leading to a landmark Supreme Court "takings-clause"case in 1978.
0wNwA TIL that the Nintendo's classic arcade game "Donkey Kong" (1981) is so hard that in 2007, only 2 people were known to have completed it. Today, that number is still under 100.
Jjxj TIL that in Chicago circa. 1858, multi-story wooden-frame buildings, sometimes entire rows of them, were put on rollers, businesses kept open, and moving them to the outskirts of town was so common as to be considered nothing more than routine traffic.