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TIL scientists in 2002 reconstructed and synthesized a visual pigment gene present in the last common ancestor of birds and crocodiles (archosaurs).

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kOAvE TIL There is an underground facility in Turkey that was originally built in 700BC that can house up to 20,000 People and Livestock
6Ej0J TIL of the Degenerate Art Exhibition that took place in Nazi Germany in 1937 during which 650 paintings, sculptures, and prints were displayed to show that modernism was a conspiracy by people who hated Germany, mainly Jews. Over one million people attended in the first six weeks.
x6ZLB TIL that despite immense amounts of prescious metals Spain collected during its colonization of the New World, it had a lot of sovereign bankruptcies and ruinous hyperinflations from the mid-1500s to 1720s.
16Wm4 TIL that Nikola Tesla once worked for Thomas Edison but left due to a disagreement over payment for his work on improving Edison's DC power systems. Tesla went on to develop AC power systems, which became the basis for modern electrical grids.
W79E8 TIL Canada developed the Ross Rifle because the British wouldn't give them Lee-Enfields during the 1899–1902 South African War. After the war the British urged Canada to switch to the Lee-Enfield but Canada refused. Ross Rifle proved ineffective in WW1 and Canada switched to the Lee-Enfield in 1916.