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TIL when the Beatles played Canada, Ringo Starr was accompanied onstage by a bodyguard and police sharpshooters because he received death threats from anti-Semites. To which Ringo replied, “Some people decided to make an example of me, as an English Jew. The one major fault is I’m not Jewish.”

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x6Nvk TIL that because all US banknotes are the same size, making telling them apart hard-to-impossible for the blind, the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing provides an electronic device (the iBill Currency Identifier) that can identify the value of the bills free of charge.
EgrnW TIL the movie Footloose is based on a real event. Elmore City, Oklahoma banned dancing in 1898 and kept the law until a group of high school students protested during the 1979-1980 school year. The Town Council voted to repeal the law 3-2 and the school students were allowed to hold a prom.
rO44 TIL The CIA spent $20 million on a cat equipped to spy on Soviets during the cold war, but it got hit by a taxi.
b6jg0 TIL in 1878, the Loretto Chapel was constructed with a wooden spiral staircase of unusually masterful craftsmanship. No builder was officially credited for the staircase, but legends say that a mysterious carpenter arrived and built it overnight, then left without collecting pay.
NXyje TIL after being scolded by a woman who felt that his shoes were too expensive for kids, Shaq forwent a $40 million deal with Reebok & signed one with Walmart. He then brought in designers from Reebok so that his Walmart shoes would look costlier than the $20 price. Over 400 million pairs were sold.