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TIL that to train new operatives during the Cold War, the Soviets built fully functional replicas of American towns. Their residents consisted of retired deep cover operatives who taught the trainees everything they needed to know about blending into American life.

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awdR0 TIL a survey of almost 7,000 people found that people felt more energetic and positive after watching cat videos. The pleasure they got from the videos was greater than the guilt of procrastinating. Dog videos work, too.
m1wgo TIL America, named after explorer Amerigo Vespucci, owes its name to cartographer Vautrin Lud and other members of the Vosges Gymnasium, who in 1507 produced the Universalis Cosmographia in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges (France), the world's first map to include the “new continent”.
1aPB8 TIL that traditionally, a bachelor party was a farewell dinner - hosted, organized and paid for entirely by the groom. It was seen as his last chance to entertain his friends as a single man, because once married, dinner parties at his home would always then be presided over by his wife
R564 TIL that the Lingerie Football League claims to have fired several current NFL replacement refs for gross incompetence
4k8g6 TIL in 1955 jazz musician Wardell Gray - who played with Count Basie and Benny Goodman - was scheduled to play the opening night of the Moulin Rouge Hotel in Vegas, the first integrated hotel-casino in the city. Gray never played and his body was found in the desert, with his death still a mystery.