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TIL that NFL officials used to use a gunshot to signal the end of a quarter. In 1994 they switched to using a whistle.

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via reddit.com

yW88 TIL that a doctor attempted to use drugs to keep James Madison alive so he could die on the 4th of July, just like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe.
eK0J TIL American businesses supplied Saddam Hussein with the chemical/biological agents used in the Kurdish Genocide.
rPRw TIL Louis C.K. wrote and directed the cult-classic film “Pootie Tang,” which Roger Ebert called a “trainwreck” that was “not in a releasable condition.”
R7V46 TIL The Japanese repair broken pottery with gold lacquer to highlight imperfections. The process is called Kintsugi. The art of Kintsugi teaches that broken objects are not something to hide but to display with pride.
pjAe TIL in 1963, at the height of the Cold War, the US military launched a ring of 480million needles into orbit around the earth. It was hoped they would more reliably bounce radio signals back to earth in case the Soviets cut through undersea cables. Multiple clumps of these needles are still up there