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TIL that 60 Minutes ran a story on the Audi 5000 in 1986, claiming that it accelerated suddenly on its own. However, the demonstration used a rigged car whose transmission had been altered. Government agencies vindicated the car, but Audi's sales were affected. 60 minutes never apologised to Audi.

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awl6o TIL Philips developed a double-sided video cassette and player to rival the VHS and Betamax formats called ‘Video 2000’. Similar in nature to an audio tape it was capable of 8 hours of recording (4 hours per side). Ultimately the product remained unpopular and lost out in the ‘videotape format war’.
D1nOD TIL a Spanish archives director who only showed up to work to sign-in & sign-out for 10 years. During the time that he was "working," he ran a male brothel and was an erotic comic book artist who created a busty superheroine named Fallarela "who hurls flaming Valencia oranges at her enemies"
KOOlR TIL of the Chichijima incident, during an air raid in late 1944, nine Americans were shot down by the Japanese, 8 of the men were captured, tortured, executed, and five cannibalized. The only American to escape capture was future US president George H. W. Bush, then a 20yo airman.
6ElnY TIL that during the women’s gymnastics all-around final at the 2000 Olympics, the vaulting table was accidentally set 5 centimeters too low. Half of the gymnasts had vaulted before organizers fixed the error, and many of them had crashes.
BdGb TIL - Half of America’s teachers graduated in the bottom third of their college class