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TIL that the Austrian football club Rapid Vienna won the 1941 German championship during Nazi rule

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OGol6 TIL that Simon and Garfunkel’s first single, released in 1957, gained popularity after their manager Sid Prosen bribed DJ Alan Freed to play the song on his radio show. The song, Hey Schoolgirl, gained popularity from this and reached #49 in the charts
AxQl TIL that the phrase “balls to the wall” comes from aviation; ball-shaped handles controlled the throttle and fuel, and putting these handles closer to the wall resulted in the fastest possible speed
WpJ4 TIL that at age 9, Ron McNair, the African-American astronaut later killed in the Challenger explosion in 1986, refused to leave a segregated public library after the librarian rejected his request to check out some books. The police were called, as was his mother.
epeRJ TIL of The Sawback Blade Bayonet. A German knife used in WW1 that would pull out the insides of it's victims and cause inevitable and painful death. They were recalled by the German military because British and French soldiers would torture and kill any soldiers caught with one, on principle.
MLN8 TIL in 1926 a Pasadena mailman planted some avocado seeds intending to graft with the desirable Fuerte variety. The graft repeatedly failed on one tree and he was going to cut it down, but was advised to “wait and see what happens”. It became the mother tree from which all Hass avocados originate.