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TIL the Spanish-America war ended with a mock battle in the Philippines to save Spanish honor - they didn't want to surrender to local forces who they regarded as inferior, but to white Americans

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BrZ1y TIL George Lucas's Star Wars pioneered the idea of omitting opening credits, a move that cost him $250,000 in fines.
4xDR TIL: Google Maps once generated a phantom town, Argleton, it appeared for job applicants, shops, real estate and had its own postcode.
OG447 TIL Lady Jane Dudley, known as the "Nine Days' Queen," briefly held the throne of England and Ireland from July 10 to 19, 1553, before being executed.
97pB TIL that Charles Darwin became interested in how vegetables crossed the oceans. In one experiment, Darwin fed seeds to a bird, shot it, and then placed the carcass in a bath rub to float. After a month, Darwin retrieved the seeds from the floating carcass and planted them. The seeds germinated.
GO84 TIL of French Treasury Chief Etienne de Silhouette, whose penny-pinching ways inspired the term ‘à la Silhouette’ for things perceived as austere. These included a newly popular form of portraiture using a shadow profile cut from black paper.