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TIL the U.S. government used to buy the dairy industry’s excess cheese and butter in order to maintain the industry as a vital national resource. At its peak in 1983, the stockpile of excess milk fat, stored in cool caves in Missouri, grew to a value of more than $4 billion.

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QZGX TIL some old folks home have fake bus stops to trick senile patients, and some even go as far as to have advertisements from 30 years ago in the bus stops!
Xj7X TIL the phrase ‘all the way to the bank’ was popularized by Liberace. When a journalist implied Liberace was gay, he sent him a telegram saying “What you said hurt me very much. I cried all the way to the bank.” It became his catchphrase after repeating it to reporters while suing the newspaper.
XQ5R TIL Johnny Cash released a whole album called “Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian” because Cash had been convinced that his ancestry was Cherokee, even by members of the Cherokee tribe. Later he found it he was not Cherokee at all, but Scottish, English and Scots-Irish.
yVQrl TIL that in 1879 Alabama dissolved the debt-ridden city of Mobile and simultaneously incorporated the 'Port of Mobile', with most of Mobile's land and population but none of its debt. The Supreme Court ruled in 1886 that the new city was the successor to the old and still owned the debts.
jXKR TIL that plastic was invented because of a $10,000 prize to develop replacement ivory. And that the money was offered by a billiard ball manufacturer.