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TIL despite being synonymous with Italian cuisine, tomatoes were not incorporated into the Italian diet until the late 17th or early 18th century. The earliest mention of a tomato in Italy was in 1548, but the view was that they "were to be sought only for their beauty"

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69WpY TIL that in mid-6th century CE two monks smuggled silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire, which led to the creation of the Byzantine silk industry that long held a silk monopoly in Europe.
9YVX6 TIL Octopuses live only 3-5 years, so they have limited time for accumulating information. Some researchers say that if octopuses had lived more, they, and not humans, would have been the dominant intelligence on Earth.
LrD9 TIL of John Snow who first proposed that cholera outbreaks were happening because people drank water contaminated with faeces. His claims were rejected for decades because the were “too disgusting” for the public to contemplate.
8avwb TIL The NYC Metro Area has a bigger GDP than ALL of Mexico, Spain, or Australia. Effectively, that means that NYC makes more money than a first-world continent.
0wX8A TIL that Robert Hill, a Jamaican entertainer, was driving when a police car ran a red light and hit him. He took video of the Jamaican police coming into his house and threatening him not to seek damages. He was later shot by the police, who called it a "shootout", after releasing the video.