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TIL when Beethoven was challenged to an improvisation duel by one of his rivals named Steibelt, Beethoven took a piece of Steibelt’s music, turned it upside down, played it, then improvised on that theme for over an hour. Steibelt simply left halfway through.

e0xjg TIL that the founder of the modern frozen food industry, Clarence Birdseye, was inspired after he was taught by the Inuit, indigenous people of Canada, how to ice fish under very thick ice. In -40 °C weather, he discovered that the fish he caught froze almost instantly, and when thawed, tasted fresh
OVx1 TIL that the terms “upper case” and “lower case” come from the printing press days, when type blocks were stored in cases on shelves. The capital letters were stored on the upper shelf because they were used less, and the smaller letters on the lower shelf. Hence, upper and lower case of letters.
5V8RP TIL after winning three 1932 Olympic track medals and having success in basketball and baseball, Babe Didrikson faced false claims that she wasn’t truly a woman. To quiet the critics, she turned to the more traditionally feminine sport of golf—and went on to win 13 consecutive LPGA tournaments.
kJODe TIL about the existence of clown eggs. Where clowns copyright their makeup/likeness by painting them on eggs!
pjAe TIL in 1963, at the height of the Cold War, the US military launched a ring of 480million needles into orbit around the earth. It was hoped they would more reliably bounce radio signals back to earth in case the Soviets cut through undersea cables. Multiple clumps of these needles are still up there