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Today I Learned (TIL)

!todayilearned@zerobytes.monster

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TIL there has never been a confirmed case of human-to-human rabies transmission via bite.

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TIL there has never been a confirmed case of human-to-human rabies transmission via bite.

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TIL the Portuguese fought Somali sultanates for nearly 40 years in the 1500s but never succeeded in colonizing Somalia.

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TIL that Jaswant Basuta stopped for a drink at the airport bar and missed Pan Am Flight 103 by just minutes. Everyone aboard was killed. Watch him tell his story in the linked video.

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TIL the Portuguese fought Somali sultanates for nearly 40 years in the 1500s but never succeeded in colonizing Somalia.

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TIL that in 2023, a group of tech students with no restaurant experience made a steakhouse in NYC as a practical joke.

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TIL Rocky’s apartment is located at the southern end of Tusculum Street in Philadelphia. The owner was paid $50 for the use of her home’s exterior in Rocky and then $500 for Rocky II

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TIL that since 2005, tennis courts in the US Open have been painted blue inside the lines to make the ball easier to see. The color was even trademarked as "US Open Blue."

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TIL that Claudia Cardinale was cast in "Once Upon A Time In The West" (1968) partly because Sergio Leone reckoned he would get a tax break for casting an actress of Italian nationality.

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TIL that in 2023, a group of tech students with no restaurant experience made a steakhouse in NYC as a practical joke.

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TIL Rocky’s apartment is located at the southern end of Tusculum Street in Philadelphia. The owner was paid $50 for the use of her home’s exterior in Rocky and then $500 for Rocky II

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TIL that Claudia Cardinale was cast in "Once Upon A Time In The West" (1968) partly because Sergio Leone reckoned he would get a tax break for casting an actress of Italian nationality.

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TIL that Thomas Edison, inventor of the phonograph, was mostly deaf. Despite this, he exercised tight controls on record production based on which musical artists he thought "sounded good."

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TIL Nunavut, Canada has a sub-census division larger than California with a population of 18.

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TIL that during the 1970s and 1980s, movies often used real human skeletons instead of plastic replicas because medical-supply bones were significantly cheaper to buy than to manufacture.

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TIL the American South has been plagued by hookworm parasites for centuries. They are largely responsible for the stereotype that Southerners are lazy and stupid.

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TIL that Liechtenstein’s first election didn’t have any political parties. The election was almost entirely focused on a candidate’s personality instead.

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TIL that since 2005, tennis courts in the US Open have been painted blue inside the lines to make the ball easier to see. The color was even trademarked as "US Open Blue."

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TIL The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) is heavily based on Homer's Odyssey

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TIL the classical guitar piece Cavatina from The Deer Hunter was originally conceived by composer Stanley Myers as a piece for piano until the guitarist John Williams convinced him to rearrange it.

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TIL between 1904 and 1908, Germany committed the Herero and Nama genocide in present day Namibia, killing an estimated 80% of the Herero people and half of the Nama people.

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TIL that Thomas Edison, inventor of the phonograph, was mostly deaf. Despite this, he exercised tight controls on record production based on which musical artists he thought "sounded good."

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TIL that 'Jethro Tull' was an actual person, an English agricultural inventor from the 1700s

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TIL Nunavut, Canada has a sub-census division larger than California with a population of 18.

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TIL that during the 1970s and 1980s, movies often used real human skeletons instead of plastic replicas because medical-supply bones were significantly cheaper to buy than to manufacture.

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TIL the American South has been plagued by hookworm parasites for centuries. They are largely responsible for the stereotype that Southerners are lazy and stupid.

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TIL that Liechtenstein’s first election didn’t have any political parties. The election was almost entirely focused on a candidate’s personality instead.

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TIL between 1904 and 1908, Germany committed the Herero and Nama genocide in present day Namibia, killing an estimated 80% of the Herero people and half of the Nama people.

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TIL that Hawaii has the 6th highest elevation point of all US states - higher up than the highest points in Utah, Montana, and Idaho

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TIL that two homes in the US state of Texas were accidentally demolished when the demolition company followed the GPS to the wrong address

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TIL that in 1995, a man robbed two banks after rubbing lemon juice on his face, believing it would make him invisible to security cameras because lemon juice is used as invisible ink

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TIL that synthetic musk—one of the most common base notes in modern perfume—was discovered completely by accident in 1888 while a chemist was trying to invent a more powerful form of TNT.

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TIL the classical guitar piece Cavatina from The Deer Hunter was originally conceived by composer Stanley Myers as a piece for piano until the guitarist John Williams convinced him to rearrange it.

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TIL that when companies get breached, the average time before they even notice is 200+ days

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TIL that Apple coined the term "Podcast". It is a combination of the words "iPod" and "broadcast".

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TIL that Hawaii has the 6th highest elevation point of all US states - higher up than the highest points in Utah, Montana, and Idaho

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TIL that two homes in the US state of Texas were accidentally demolished when the demolition company followed the GPS to the wrong address

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TIL that in 1995, a man robbed two banks after rubbing lemon juice on his face, believing it would make him invisible to security cameras because lemon juice is used as invisible ink

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TIL that synthetic musk—one of the most common base notes in modern perfume—was discovered completely by accident in 1888 while a chemist was trying to invent a more powerful form of TNT.

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TIL that Andrew and Tristan Tate's father, Emory Tate, was an American chess International Master who won the U.S. Armed Forces Chess Championship five times.

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TIL the line "This town ain't big enough for the both of us" comes from the 1932 movie The Western Code

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TIL utopia literally translates as "no place" in Greek, meaning it doesn't exist

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TIL that Andrew and Tristan Tate's father, Emory Tate, was an American chess International Master who won the U.S. Armed Forces Chess Championship five times.

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TIL the line "This town ain't big enough for the both of us" comes from the 1932 movie The Western Code

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TIL utopia literally translates as "no place" in Greek, meaning it doesn't exist

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TIL that some ancient scholars theorized that only the first 23 books of the Odyssey were composed by "Homer", with the final book being composed by a different person.

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TIL that Russian cows that have been given virtual-reality glasses increase their milk production.

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TIL the first book Dr. Seuss illustrated but didn’t write was *The Pocket Book of Boners*

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TIL that, according to Chinese legend, the founder of the second dynasty of China decided to overthrow the first known dynasty after the king forced him to eat a meat dish made from his own son.

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TIL about Saroo Brierley, a 5-year old boy who fell asleep on a train in India and woke up 1,400 km from home. He found his mother 25 years later using satellite images on Google Earth.

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TIL: The 1907 Peking to Paris Car Race took 2 Months and the Second Place Racer was Arrested for Fraud

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TIL that onions are the only agricultural commodity that is banned from futures trading in the US

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TIL about Roy Sullivan, a U.S. park ranger who was struck by lightning seven times between 1942 and 1977 and survived all of them, earning him the nickname "Human Lightning Conductor.

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TIL that Greece and Albania are technically still at war. The Greek parliament declared a state of war in October 1940 after Italian-occupied Albania attacked Greece. The law still remains.

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TIL about Saroo Brierley, a 5-year old boy who fell asleep on a train in India and woke up 1,400 km from home. He found his mother 25 years later using satellite images on Google Earth.

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TIL Black people were denied vanilla ice cream in the Jim Crow south – except on Independence Day

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TIL Coffee can provide similar hydrating qualities to water - and there's no evidence it causes dehydration

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TIL: The 1907 Peking to Paris Car Race took 2 Months and the Second Place Racer was Arrested for Fraud

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TIL that onions are the only agricultural commodity that is banned from futures trading in the US

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TIL about Roy Sullivan, a U.S. park ranger who was struck by lightning seven times between 1942 and 1977 and survived all of them, earning him the nickname "Human Lightning Conductor.

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TIL that Greece and Albania are technically still at war. The Greek parliament declared a state of war in October 1940 after Italian-occupied Albania attacked Greece. The law still remains.

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TIL the first book Dr. Seuss illustrated but didn’t write was *The Pocket Book of Boners*

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TIL that some ancient scholars theorized that only the first 23 books of the Odyssey were composed by "Homer", with the final book being composed by a different person.

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TIL that, according to Chinese legend, the founder of the second dynasty of China decided to overthrow the first known dynasty after the king forced him to eat a meat dish made from his own son.

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TIL Black people were denied vanilla ice cream in the Jim Crow south – except on Independence Day

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TIL Coffee can provide similar hydrating qualities to water - and there's no evidence it causes dehydration

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TIL the co-creator of the famous anti-war short film "Short Subject" (Mickey Mouse in Vietnam), Whitney Lee Savage, is the father of Adam Savage from Myth Busters.

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TIL the 2011 Japan earthquake was so powerful it moved the main island of Honshu 8 feet eastward, shifted the Earth's axis by up to 10 inches, and shortened the length of a day by 1.8 microseconds

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TIL the V6 engine in a economy 2009 Toyota Camry (the 3.5L 2GR-FE) is the same engine Lotus used to power the Evora sports car.

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TIL that the nephew of Mussolini was a semi-succesfull Japanese city-pop singer.

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TIL that the Iraqi flag used between 1991-2004 contained Saddam Hussein's own handwriting.

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TIL the V6 engine in a economy 2009 Toyota Camry (the 3.5L 2GR-FE) is the same engine Lotus used to power the Evora sports car.

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TIL that Russian cows that have been given virtual-reality glasses increase their milk production.

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TIL that the nephew of Mussolini was a semi-succesfull Japanese city-pop singer.

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TIL that globally, 57% of adults didn't drink alcohol at all in the past year, and 44.5% have never had a drink in their life

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TIL that the Iraqi flag used between 1991-2004 contained Saddam Hussein's own handwriting.

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TIL- How more elephant poop leads to more guitars

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TIL the Hawaii Air National Guard has a special Royal Guard Uniform based on King David Kalākaua’s personal guard

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TIL the icefish is the only vertebrate that doesn't have hemoglobin in its blood, making it the only one whose blood is not red (it's mostly clear).

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TIL the Crusaders almost allied with the Mongols to defeat the Islamic caliphates.

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TIL Tom Holland had a small role in "A Monster Calls" where he's the on-set stand-in for the titular Monster

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TIL: Under Canadian law, anyone born before December 2025, who can prove a direct ancestor is Canadian, can immediately become a Canadian citizen.

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TIL the icefish is the only vertebrate that doesn't have hemoglobin in its blood, making it the only one whose blood is not red (it's mostly clear).

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TIL the Crusaders almost allied with the Mongols to defeat the Islamic caliphates.

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TIL Tom Holland had a small role in "A Monster Calls" where he's the on-set stand-in for the titular Monster

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TIL the 2011 Japan earthquake was so powerful it moved the main island of Honshu 8 feet eastward, shifted the Earth's axis by up to 10 inches, and shortened the length of a day by 1.8 microseconds

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TIL: Under Canadian law, anyone born before December 2025, who can prove a direct ancestor is Canadian, can immediately become a Canadian citizen.

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TIL the co-creator of the famous anti-war short film "Short Subject" (Mickey Mouse in Vietnam), Whitney Lee Savage, is the father of Adam Savage from Myth Busters.

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TIL that in 1815, Napoleon ruled France for just 100 days after escaping exile before being defeated at Waterloo and exiled again, giving rise to the historical term "The Hundred Days."

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TIL the Hawaii Air National Guard has a special Royal Guard Uniform based on King David Kalākaua’s personal guard

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TIL that Buddhist monks refrain from eating onions and garlic because they believe these vegetables "increase undesirable emotions."

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TIL Fiji was the first country to have land cross the International Date Line after Kiribati shifted the line in 1995 to keep all of its islands on the same calendar day

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TIL: The earliest evidence, anywhere in the world, for the controlled lighting of fire has been recorded from Suffolk, England, and dated to 400,000 years before present

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TIL that over half of South Korea's population and more than 52% of its GDP are crammed into Greater Seoul—which covers just 12% of the country's land.

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TIL Fiji was the first country to have land cross the International Date Line after Kiribati shifted the line in 1995 to keep all of its islands on the same calendar day

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TIL Acetaminophen toxicity is the most common cause of acute liver failure in the United States. Responsible for 500 deaths annually, and many more thousands of ER visits.

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TIL that the highest recorded wind speed not associated with a tornado or cyclone was recorded on Mount Washington in New Hampshire, whose observatory recorded wind speeds of 231 mph (372 km/h).

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TIL: The earliest evidence, anywhere in the world, for the controlled lighting of fire has been recorded from Suffolk, England, and dated to 400,000 years before present

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TIL that over half of South Korea's population and more than 52% of its GDP are crammed into Greater Seoul—which covers just 12% of the country's land.

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TIL Acetaminophen toxicity is the most common cause of acute liver failure in the United States. Responsible for 500 deaths annually, and many more thousands of ER visits.

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