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TIL medieval Londoners could hail link-boys to carry torches and guide them through the streets at night-time. These boys were called mooncursers in thieves' cant.

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aowA TIL the US military once tried to build a radar detector-detector-detector detector in order to detect radar detector-detector-detectors, whose main purpose is to detect a radar detector detector, which were built to alert police to someone using an illegal radar detector
4k1lJ TIL in the 1970’s, a shipment company was denied a loan needed to keep the company afloat so the owner took their last $5,000 to Vegas. Playing Blackjack, Fred Smith ended up with $25,000, which was enough to cover the fuel bill and keep FedEx going for another week.
p8LaN TIL Indonesia is the world’s largest island nation it contains thousands and thousands of islands. Indonesia has so many islands it has never been able to fully count or name them. Indonesia is embarking on an ambitious island census to count the islands and registering their names.
E1xwd TIL In 1969 Forrest Parry, an IBM engineer, had the idea to affix magnetic tape to a plastic card. Every adhesive failed. He went home frustrated. His wife was ironing when he walked in. She suggested he fuse the tape onto the card with the iron. It was a success, and the magstripe card was born.
R79nl TIL Masayoshi Son, the 2nd richest man in Japan, holds the distinction of losing the most money in history. He lost approximately $70 BILLION in the dot-com bust of 2000.