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TIL When Salmon P. Chase served as Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln, he put his own face on the $1 bill so people would recognize him and further his political career.

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PYEyE TIL That in 1973 IBM offered its UPC bar code proposal to the grocery industry for free. The industry accepted a very close standard to their proposal. However, IBM also made the first technology capable of reading the bar codes, and made tons of money selling the equipment to grocery stores.
eppGE TIL hippos are actually not great swimmers. Instead, they mostly move with a sort of slow-motion gallop along the riverbed and they must be denser than water
OooVL TIL Uranus has a magnetic field that "flickers" because the magnetic field is so off-kilter with its rotational axis that magnetic lines will snap apart and reconnect as it rotates. According to one astronomer, "Uranus is a geometric mess."
lwG1 TIL that Japan had a monster-collecting card game in the Edo Period (1603-1868)
x65Bg TIL there is an University in Pyongyang, North Korea known as PUST that teaches entirely in English. It also operates its own social media accounts. Foreign academics can apply to volunteer to lecture at the University in-person or online.