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TIL that Poppy flowers became associated with the military after a Canadian poet was inspired by a field of poppies near a mass grave in Belgium folliwing World War 1. The poppies grew there after the bombing and trench warfare churned up the soil, exposing dormant poppy seeds to the sunlight.

OGVW4 TIL of the 2016 Kasese Clashes, a brief conflict that erupted between Ugandan security forces and the royal guards of a subnational kingdom called the Rwenzururu kingdom. In the end, the Omusinga (king) of Rwenzururu was arrested and 87 of his men perished.
p8jQQ TIL about absorption cooling: freeze things by burning stuff (or using residual heat from other processes, such as water heating). Patented back in 1859-1860, with the first commercial application in 1925, this process is still used today in gas powered refrigerators, typically found in RVs.
8awKP TIL the nation of Bhutan uses Gross National Happiness (GNH) as their population’s development indicator rather than Gross Domestic Product. The concept is designed to encourage people to take more open approaches to progressive mindsets and personal wellbeing.
v1blB TIL about the Halo Drive, a proposed method for interstellar travel that combines black holes, gravitational slingshots, lasers, and solar sails to propel a ship close to the speed of light without expending fuel.
9eV7 TIL The Half Way to Hell Club was an exclusive club organized by the men who fell from the Golden Gate Bridge during its construction in 1936 and 1937 and were saved by the safety nets.