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TIL A silk top hat is made from hatters' plush, and it is thought that there are no looms capable of producing the traditional material any more; the last looms in Lyon were destroyed by the last owner, Nicholas Smith, after a violent breakup with his brother, Bobby Smith.

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XE00k TIL Alexander Graham Bell was involved in the Eugenics Movement and advocated against 'deaf intermarriage'
yQmX8 TIL after a Polish Admiral of German descent Józef Unrug was taken prisoner during WW2, his former Imperial German Navy friends came to visit him. Unrug refused to speak German with them, saying that he had forgotten that language in September 1939 the day Germany invaded Poland
dPeB TIL The Kansas State Marching Band did a formation that looked like a phallic object was entering the mouth of South Dakota’s mascot, resulting in a fine and a game suspension of Kansas State’s director of bands.
6EWM7 TIL in addition to the protests & death threats Ruby Bridges had to face as the first black kid in a white school, her father lost his job, the local grocery store stopped serving the family, & her sharecropper grandparents were turned off their land.
jDp TIL America has been at war for 214 years, but at peace for only 21