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TIL In Switzerland it’s illegal to own just one guinea pig because they’re prone to loneliness

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maAv TIL In 1953 North Korean air force lieutenant No Kum-Sok (age 21) flew his MiG-15 to the South. Since this fighter plane was then the best the Communist bloc had, No’s defection was considered an intelligence bonanza, and he was awarded the then exorbitant sum of $100,000 ($890,831 in 2014 dollars).
PjKV TIL: Instead of donating money to a New York Food Bank, Toyota offered ‘kaizen’; a Japanese word meaning “continuous improvement”. Toyota’s engineers applied kaizen to the soup kitchen, reducing the average wait time from 90 to 18 minutes.
6xmJ TIL that Johnson & Johnson knew their baby powder product caused ovarian cancer in some consumers, but sold it anyway. A victim successfully sued for $70 million but J&J still maintained that their baby powder was “perfectly safe”.
xVWM7 TIL In April 1918, Winston Churchill nominated Theodore Roosevelt to be the Allies plenipotentiary to Moscow. The plan was for Roosevelt to make a deal where Lenin reentered the war and the Allies would "safeguard the permanent fruits of the Revolution"
Y7End TIL The Basilica of Saint Clement in Rome, built in 1100, has levels that span millennia. The Basilica sits on top of an early 4th cent. church, which sits on top of a Mithraeum cavern/temple from 1st/2d cent. All built on the foundation of Republic-era house destroyed in in the Great Fire of 64