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TIL A Japanese man discovered the massive heat - transfer air currents known as the Jet stream in the 1920s. His work went completely unnoticed because he published his findings in Japanese and Esperanto.

VxLZ TIL The sculptor of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Gutzon Borglum, planned to make a secret room behind the hairline of Abraham Lincoln which was supposed to be a doorway to a chamber originally intended to hold some of America’s most treasured documents but was left unfinished due to his death.
9E66 TIL of American Revolutionary War hero, Polish general Tadeusz Kosciuszko. After the war, before returning to Europe, he left Thomas Jefferson his will, dedicating his pay and estate to buy the freedom of black slaves and educate them for independent life and work. The will was never executed.
PYl0n TIL of the concept of Yūgen (幽玄) an important concept in traditional Japanese aesthetics that doesn't have an English equivalent. It is said to mean "a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe ... and the sad beauty of human suffering".
D1n1D TIL The world’s oldest known spider lived to be 43. Named Number 16, she died after being stung by a wasp.
MYEB TIL that the word ‘plastic’ in 'plastic surgery’ is in no way a reference to the petroleum based engineered material, but actually denotes 'sculpting or reshaping’, from the Greek derived word 'πλαστική’ (plastikē), “the art of modelling” of malleable flesh.