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TIL that a popular 70s Japanese kids show called Rascal the Raccoon led to a raccoon adoption craze in Japan. Eventually, raccoons invaded the wild, where they continue to this day to wreak havoc on infrastructure and the environment as they have no natural predators.

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loEG5 TIL that the first SMS text message ever sent was on December 3, 1992. It was sent by a 22 year old test engineer from his computer to a phone. The message simply read "Merry Christmas".
b9gQp TIL In the middle ages some kings had clothes made from "Salamander fur" which were completely fire-proof and bright white. The name likely comes from the common belief that Salamanders were "born from fire". The clothes were actually made out of asbestos.
4Bdw TIL that deep inside an abandoned mine 230’ below Pennsylvania 600 federal workers process truckloads of retirement paperwork by hand moving files to and from over 28,000 file cabinets, desk to desk, from cavern to cavern. The process works as slowly now as it did in 1977.
EaJp TIL Theodore Roosevelt was the first U.S. President to fly in a plane - and he nearly fell out. He described it as ‘the bulliest experience of this life’
VMvn0 TIL before the Nazis adopted the Swastika in the West, it was used by Rudyard Kipling, The 45th Infantry Division of the United States Army, Carlsberg Group, the Finnish Air Force, Boy Scouts in Britain, The Royal Air Force's 273 Squadron, the Arizona Department of Transportation and many others.