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TIL there has been a big increase in news headlines suggesting fear, anger, disgust, and sadness since 2000, and especially since about 2010

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W7xJd TIL Before natural gas distribution became common, houses had pipelines for coal-derived "town gas" to use for heating and cooking.
Nn5M TIL: The Arab slave-trade trafficked 10-18 million people from Africa, Europe and Asia to the Middle east.
kWyB TIL Following the release of Rocky IV, a joke was making rounds in Hollywood. Since Rocky had run out of opponents, he would have to fight an alien if a fifth movie was made. Jim and John Thomas took the joke seriously and wrote a screenplay based on it, which later became the movie “Predator”.
dDVBd TIL that not only can octopi change their color to match their surroundings, but they can also change the actual texture of their skin as well by controlling the size of projections on their skin (called papillae), creating textures ranging from small bumps to tall spikes.
9YoYQ TIL Gulliver's Travels by Swift was largely changed by others in later editions from the original biting satire to remove a lot of the satirical tone and make it more passable for the general public's consumption. It was basically changed from political satire to a children's book.