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TIL Vikings originated the original acapella rap battles called "flyting"

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6ERxX TIL A 2001 investigation found that in several cases, payday lenders in California were charging considerably higher rates than loan sharks from the Chicago Outfit organized crime syndicate.
GgVQ TIL the 2012 Olympics was the first time that every country sent a woman to compete.
X0ExP TIL The Béarn, France's only aircraft carrier during WW2, never launched her aircraft in combat. Instead Béarn transported supplies and spent most of the war in Martinique. On the ship's only voyage to Europe Béarn collided with the USAT J. W. McAndrew killing dozens.
A4bl TIL that up until the 1600s, a “black swan” was a metaphor for something that did not exist. Then a group of Dutch explorers became the first Europeans to see black swans in Western Australia in 1697, and the phrase was amended to mean “a perceived impossibility that might later be disproven.”
16ow7 TIL Westinghouse acquired CBS in 1994, sold most of its own non media business, then renamed itself CBS in 1997