› added 11 years ago

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TIL that during the Civil War, JP Morgan founder bought five thousand rifles for $3.50 each from an army arsenal, and sold them to a general in the field for $22 each

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MevmV Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR), the so-called "Korean artificial sun," fusion device has set a world record by maintaining plasma at over 100 million °C (180 million °F) for 20 seconds.
5Ygdk TIL that ingredients in the average bottle of prestige perfume cost about $1.20 to $1.50. The actual liquid in a typical bottle of $150 perfume is less than 1% of the retail cost. The bottle, box and and display carton typically cost four to six times times more than the fragrance itself
xVV1B TIL of a ship known as the Mary Celeste, which was discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic. The last log entry was 10 days before her discovery and when another ship happened upon her, all of the provisions and belongings of the crew were perfectly intact, but the crew were all missing
8Vo4 TIL: Rock Against Racism was formed in part as a protest against racist remarks by David Bowie and Eric Clapton. The latter announcing “Britain was in danger of becoming a ‘black colony’. Among other things, Clapton said 'Keep Britain white!’ which was at the time a National Front slogan
Y7mOG TIL that the Seminole Tribe did not exist prior to the 1700s. It was formed in Spanish Florida by members of other tribes who were displaced out of the English colonies by settlers. Florida's original indigenous population was extinct by then from disease and enslavement brought by the Spanish.