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TIL There’s an episode of “Batman: The Animated Series” in which Scarecrow tries to poison Gotham’s water supply by putting fear toxin in it; a plot device used by the movie “Batman Begins.”

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R7vr7 TIL about Almon Brown Strowger. Strowger's undertaking business was losing clients to a competitor whose telephone-operator wife was redirecting everyone who called for Strowger. Motivated to remove the intermediary operator, he invented the first automatic telephone exchange in 1889.
OWL4 TIL Major Harold Hering was discharged from the Air Force in late 1973 for asking the question “How can I know that an order I receive to launch my (nuclear) missiles came from a sane president?” under Richard Nixon.
DQPlP TIL: parcel delivery with USPS began on January 1st, 1913. The very first parcel ever delivered was 11 pounds of apples to New Jersey governor (and President-Elect) Woodrow Wilson
PYK0e TIL Essentially all penicillin produced after 1943 originated with a mold sample found on a cantaloupe in Peoria, Illinois. The moldy part was cut off and cultured and the lab technicians ate the rest of the fruit.
OXJ4 TIL Stephen Colbert’s father and two older brothers died in a plane crash because the cockpit crew became distracted from talking while landing the plane. A few years later, the FAA created the ‘Sterile Cockpit Rule,’ prohibiting staff from engaging in non-essential conversation once below 10,000 ft