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TIL that a "macaroni", as mentioned in Yankee Doodle, refers to a 1700s trend wherein some men would dress up in ridiculously over the top clothing and speak in a gender-ambiguous manner. The name came from young men who had toured Italy referring to fashionable things as "very macaroni".

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7LdL TIL The Cult of Pythagoras didn’t eat beans because they thought you lose your soul when you fart.
4BM5 TIL that back in the day, the guard who stood in the watchtower would ring a bell when the tower’s shadow disappeared (signalling midday and the start of a new watchman’s shift). This is how the term “watch” became associated with telling time!
J1lRk TIL that Lithuanian book smugglers smuggled Lithuanian-language books printed in the Latin alphabet into Lithuania, defying the Russian Empire's 1864 ban on such literature. The Russians were trying to "russify" Lithuanians by forcing them to use the Cyrillic alphabet, and finally gave up in 1904.
p1NA TIL: Hacker, Kevin Mitnick, spent eight months in solitary confinement after law enforcement officials convinced a judge that he had the ability to “start a nuclear war by whistling into a pay phone.”
Elow TIL that in 1991 an F-15 fighter achieved an air-to-air kill using a 2000lb bomb. The USAF F-15E Strike Eagle of the 335th Tactical Fighter Squadron released a GBU-10 Paveway II laser-guided bomb which, after 30 seconds of flight, impacted an Iraqi Air Force Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship.