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Til Marcus Licinius Crassus, often called the richest man in Rome in time of Julius Ceasar, created first ever Roman fire brigade. However the brigade wouldn't put out the fire until the owner would sell the property in question to Crassus for miserable price.

QJV1k TIL California's Central Valley was home to the largest freshwater lake this side of the Great Lakes (three times the size of Lake Tahoe). Over the past century it disappeared.
75E7 TIL the process of seppuku, suicide by disemboweling to preserve honor, eventually became so ritualized that the abdominal cut was not even needed. The samurai merely reached for a fan instead of a knife, and doing so signaled the merciful beheading strike by the samurai’s assistant.
4XMZX TIL In 1941 The Soviet had a design competition for the IL-2's sophisticated 23mm autocanons. The winner was chosen to equip the plane. The loser was arrested and executed.
lPG5 TIL that Skeptical Inquirer and JREF investigated appearances by “psychic” Sylvia Browne on The Montel Williams Show by looking at what happened to 115 victims of crime discussed on the shows. While Browne claims to be at least 85% correct of her abilities, SI and JREF found her to be 0% correct.
7rROX Today I learned of a phenomenon called Twin Films. Twin Films are films with the same, or very similar, plot produced or released at the same time by two different film studios. examples include, [Finding Nemo - Shark Tale], [Olympus has Fallen - White House down], [Churchill - Darkest Hour]