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TIL that porch roofs on old houses in the American South are sometimes painted blue to scare off "haints," a variation of the word "haunt" referring to ghosts or spirits. Blue is the color of water, and ghosts supposedly can't cross water.

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N76Lb TIL in 1905, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court ruled that states could enforce rules that restrain individual liberty, in favor of conserving the safety of the community
v1nx TIL the word ‘escalate’ did not exist until the invention of the escalator.
vePr TIL: That a meteor strike in the Americas caused a tsunami that wiped out villages in Europe in 1014 AD
8Vm8 TIL a child that was Bart’s age when The Simpson’s first premiered would now be the same age as Homer.
kZld TIL in 2009 a woman caused a riot at a Columbus, Ohio, Burlington Coat Factory after it became clear to customers, whom she had offered store-wide to purchase all orders up to $500 from her lottery winnings, that she had no money.