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TIL the Zildjian Company—the world's largest producer of cymbals—was founded in 1623 by Avedis Zildjian, an Armenian alchemist in Constantinople who ended up making a cymbal instead of gold. Now based in Massachusetts, the company is still being run by the 14th generation of Zildjian's descendants.

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5YN6B TIL Tetsuya Nomura, the director of the Final Fantasy VII Remake videogame, didn't know he was the game's director until he read the credits for the first time.
LXEQ TIL that above the gates of the Buchenwald concentration camp were the words “Everyone gets what they deserve”. After the war the camp became a prison site for Nazis, and the words were not removed.
5VAbr TIL that after the Allies invaded North Africa in WW2, the Germans planned to use the powerful French navy to counterattack. The occupied French responded by scuttling their own fleet, destroying 77 ships and damaging many more. Ships burned for days, and the harbor was heavily polluted for years.
drOj TIL the fire that crippled the hand of jazz guitar legend Django Reinhardt also left his right leg paralyzed. Doctors intended to amputate the leg, but Reinhardt refused to have the surgery, and was able to walk within a year
GXoJ TIL that Kim Peek, the inspiration for the movie Rain Man, was a savant born with significant brain damage who has read over 12,000 books and remembers everything he’s read in them. He reads two pages at once, one with each eye, and remembers it all.