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TIL Toyota used to be called Toyoda but in 1936 the company decided for a new name held a competition and got over 27000 entries. Toyota was chosen because the number of strokes to write Toyota in Japanese (eight) was thought to bring luck and prosperity

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69QEl TIL of Africa, Ohio, USA, the only town in the world named after the Underground Railroad, the series of networks to help slaves escape Southern US slave states. The name is derived from a mocking comment from a pro-slavery neighbor referring to the the community of escaped slaves there as Africa.
ADY9B TIL That the world's foremost expert on Sherlock Holmes, Richard Lancelyn Green, was found dead in his flat in 2004 in very mysterious circumstances. Green at the time of death was attempting to stop a Christies auction of Holmes artefacts from taking place and ending up in collectors hands.
Lkb4m TIL there is an ultra high-powered set of telescopes in Chile officially titled VLT, for Very Large Telescope
kJlGd Til: On July 4th, 1778 George Rogers clark, a colonel from Virginia, took Kaskaskia, Illinois, without firing a single shot.
VMwE8 TIL Every year in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, there's a two-week long mock medieval war that draws so many participants, it has its own mayor and post office for the weeks it is active