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TIL in the 80s, Munich's Playboy Club issued membership cards that, at a glance, looked very similar to diplomatic passports. As a result, many people escaped East Berlin by simply flashing their membership cards, and were usually waved through by guards.

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vOND TIL there is a bird that can imitate the sounds of chainsaws and car alarms.
GYLBN TIL During WW2 British prisoners captured by the Japanese were not allowed to sing, in an effort to stop the morale of the prisoners from getting to high, so they whistled instead, an example of this can be seen in the film "Bridge over the River Kwai".
rNEee TIL Members Only, a popular brand of jackets in the 1980s, spent its entire 6 million dollar ad budget in 1986 on anti-drug public service announcements.
EMJP TIL a sleeping pilot awoke to see Venus in the night sky, mistook it for an oncoming plane and dove the plane down. Unsecured passengers were thrown against the ceiling.
oRekA TIL of Lystrosaurus, an animal that survived Permian-Triassic extinction event. At one point it represented 95% of all land vertebrates for millions of years. Among other suggestions, it has been proposed this dominance was a matter of sheer luck.