› added 7 years ago

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TIL in 1946, a local chicken farmer offered 100 chicks for each homer the Nashua Dodgers hit. Newcomer Roy Campanella hit 14 in his first season and sent all 1,400 to his father who used them to start a thriving poultry farm. He also went on to become one of the first black major league players.

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78YrP TIL there is a stable population of rhesus macaque monkeys in central Florida. They were released on an island in a swamp as part of a jungle cruise attraction in 1938, but escaped the island because the tour operator didn’t know they could swim.
xreD TIL that take-out restaurants existed in ancient Rome, with service counters opening onto the street to pick up food. More than 200 existed in Pompeii, and most of its homes lacked dining or kitchen areas, suggesting that cooking at home was unusual.
kJLGE TIL that Resident Evil 1 writer Kenichi Iwao conceived of Chris's surname Redfield under the presumption that it's a fictional name entirely of his original creation that nobody has the real world until 2020 when he found out about the then CDC director Dr Robert Redfield in a news report
69W8Q TIL about the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist, where thieves stole ~$18 million worth of Maple Syrup from Quebec.
v1pb8 TIL Over 140 Polish pilots flew in the British Air Force during the Battle of Britain, making them the largest non-British nationality in the force. 2nd was New Zealand, and 3rd was Canada. Nearly a quarter of the pilots that fought for the RAF and RN in the Battle of Britain were not British.