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TIL When the # and * keys were first put on phones they had no purpose whatsoever and were only included because touch tone phones could create up to twelve tones.

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wO18 TIL All carrots were purple before the 17th century
jNjQp TIL of Dr Hazzard who created a sanitarium where patients "fasted" on small amounts of liquids. After an 18 month stint in prison she opened a new sanitarium and continued to supervise fasts. Over 40 people died in her care and she claimed that they passed of undisclosed illnesses.
1aPd8 TIL of the Lockheed bribery scandals. Starting in the 1950s, officials of Lockheed, the aerospace company, bribed many influential individuals including a Dutch prince, a Japanese mob boss and a Saudi Arabian arms dealer in order to negotiate favourable deals. The bribes were exposed in the 1970s.
VBLX4 TIL there is a LARP party in Czechia, where you roleplay contemporary rural Americans
P1Oyw TIL only 14% of Americans regularly wore seatbelts in the 80's and laws were considered violations of freedom. To regulate seatbelts, the Reagan administration told automakers to install airbags unless they persuaded 2/3 of states to pass seatbelt laws. New seatbelt laws were often weak, anyway.