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TIL that the first humans were apparently Chinese - Peking man was the missing link between ancient ape and modern humans. However, most of the fossil fragments of the Peking man vanished after 1941

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J1j9k TIL about Shade Balls. Shade balls are small plastic spheres floated on top of a reservoir for environmental reasons, including to slow evaporation and prevent sunlight from causing reactions among chemical compounds present in the water.
yVLRe TIL Major Henry Rathbone, the man sitting next to Lincoln when he was assassinated in 1865, died in an insane asylum in Germany in 1911 after murdering his wife in front of his kids.
aoBb TIL a pollination technique invented by a 12 year old slave is the reason Vanilla is commonly available today
0wJ4j TIL the first ever synthetically produced color pigment, Egyptian blue, was created around 2,200 B.C. In 2006 scientists discovered it glows under fluorescent lights, allowing us to detect it on artifacts where it is no longer visible to the naked eye.
Wk8d9 TIL that the oldest animal (at least, the oldest whose age has been identified) was a 507 year-old clam that washed up on the beach in Iceland. Researchers, not realizing how old the clam was, killed it while they were examining it.