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TIL the US Air Force lost an aircraft worth $1 billion in today's money because General Electric wanted a photo with a bunch of aircraft all close together

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xVLlb TIL: The analogy about frogs not jumping out of water that is slowly raised to boiling stems from a 19th-century experiment demonstrating just that ... but the frog previously had its brain removed.
Eg4xx TIL that although the British Double Cross operation captured or turned all German agents operating in Britain during WWII, the German Abwehr was equally successful in Holland with an operation called Englandspiel, capturing all British SOE agents sent to aid Dutch Resistance.
jN6vp TIL the expression "blood is thicker than water" originally had the exact opposite meaning: "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."
6wWQ TIL NFL teams did not come to the field for the National Anthem until 2009, when the Defense Department started to pay teams to do so to promote patriotism.
P1KMw TIL of The Swing Youth were a youth counterculture of jazz and swing lovers in Germany formed in 1939. They admired the "American way of life", defining themselves in swing music and opposing Nazism. With a focus on African-American music they were particularly spiteful of the Hitler Youth.