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TIL that Edison offered $50000 to Tesla if he succeeded in improving the efficiency of Edison's prototypical dynamos. Despite Tesla making a great deal of progress, Edison claimed that the offer was a joke

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rRaA0 TIL "call of the void" is that feeling when you think for a second about steering into oncoming traffic or jumping off a cliff for no reason although you would never do it.
6E6Wm TIL US President Dwight D. Eisenhower personally ordered the first democratically elected leader of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, to be assassinated by poisoning his toothpaste.
rRe8y TIL Colored gems (e.g. rubies and sapphires) at Tiffany & Co. are a massive ripoff because they do not clearly disclose fracture filling treatments. Infused with "colorless substances to improve color and clarity" is the difference between a $100/carat ruby and a $10000/carat ruby.
WmB4 TIL Steven Spielberg wanted to direct a James Bond film, but he was turned down by the franchise’s owners. When he told his friend George Lucas, Lucas said he had a film “just like James Bond but even better.” It was a story about an archaeologist named Indiana.
R7OJ6 TIL in 1920, a young woman in Germany was found with no identification and processed as “Miss Unknown" who, later, claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov of Russia. Later, the true Anastasia’s uncle found out that she was Franziska Schanzkowska, a Polish munitions factory worker.