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TIL the Quartering Act of 1765 did not force colonists host British troops in their homes as commonly believed. Rather, it called for construction of barracks, and if no room, housing was extended to “inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualling houses, and the houses of sellers of wine.”

jNG1X TIL the short-lived Korean Empire (1897-1910), eager to modernize, purchased a ship from Japan spending 30% of its entire military budget. It turned out to be a deceptively packaged cargo ship useless for combat. Japan later took it back after dismantling the military and colonizing the nation.
LQMYm TIL that property around distilleries (like Jack Daniels) have to deal with a fungus that is pervasive and a nuisance to deal with.
npZ9 TIL In 1975, two men got a marriage license in Colorado after the clerk couldn’t find a law against it. When they applied for a spouse’s visa, the U.S. government mailed a letter saying, “You have failed to establish that a bona fide marital relationship can exist between two faggots.”
xnZg TIL Olympic / sports doping offers an example of the Prisoner’s Dilemma: if no athlete dopes, nobody has an advantage; if one does, he/she benefits, but if all athletes dope then the advantage disappears and only the potential negatives (getting caught) remain.
8ajxb TIL that Brazil was a monarchy until Crown Princess Isabel signed a law emancipating all slaves in Brazil in 1888. This was unpopular among the rich plantation owners and the imperial family was deposed in a military coup