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TIL Dizzy Gillespie ran for US president twice. Gillespie promised that if he were elected, the White House would be renamed the Blues House, and he would have a cabinet composed of Duke Ellington (Secretary of State), Miles Davis (Director of the CIA), Max Roach (Secretary of Defense)...

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KpJa TIL London only reached its pre-WW2 population level in January, 2015.
QNnA6 TIL that it is illegal for certain Canadians and all Canadian companies to comply with US sanctions against Cuba
OoEdY TIL 3 Mile Island contained nearly all of its radioactive material and subjected surrounding residents to the amount of radiation equivalent to a half a chest xray. No additional deaths are implicated.
7rrlP TIL that the Marquis de Sade, from which we derive the term "sadism," actually played a part in inciting the French revolution: While a prisoner in the Bastille, he screamed from the window of his cell that prisoners were being murdered there. Ten days later, the Bastille was stormed.
D1EQp TIL Rick Riordan, author of Percy Jackson, wrote a teacher who was showing the movies in class: "No. Stop. Please. No class deserves such a punishment". On another occasion he wrote: "I would rather have my teeth pulled with no anesthesia".