› added 8 months ago

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TIL after teddy bears (named for Teddy Roosevelt) became popular, there was an attempt to market billy possums (named for William Taft). It was unsuccessful.

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6E5MZ TIL that the last surviving captive of the last slave ship to bring African slaves to the US was interviewed in the 1930s
GA77G TIL President Gerald Ford was in college during the Depression. Desperate for money, every two months he sold his blood for $25
WkQ5L TIL a man who suffered from severe electrical burns ended up dying during the Blackout of 2003. This was because there was no electricity to power his air conditioning to keep his skin grafts at the right temperature. He was put in this position by electricity and out by lack of it.
wLGPY TIL due to a folk belief that people born in certain years have bad personalities, the birth rate in Japan dropped by 30% from 1965 to 1966, and recovered completely in 1967.
yV8Ea TIL that Technicolor movies were filmed on three rolls of film with the image split using a prism into three color images. Each film roll was then developed and dyed a complimentary primary color and then the three rolls were laminated together to create a full color roll of film