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TIL of the Schultüte, which means "school cone" in English. It is a large attractively decorated cone filled with toys, chocolate, sweets, school supplies, and various other treats. The cones are given to German children by their parents and/or grandparents on their first day of first grade.

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XE04Q TIL that modern fire departments/brigades have their origins from when property-insurance companies had their own fire departments.
ONNX TIL Abraham Lincoln’s son Robert was present or near for the Assassinations of three America presidents (his father, Garfield and McKinley). He once refused a presidential invitation saying “I’m not going… because there is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present”
wr58 TIL the X-Files episode ‘Home’ which was about a murderous inbred family was based on a story from Charlie Chaplin’s autobiography where a family introduced him to their quadruple amputee son by pulling him out from under a bed after which he “flopp[ed] around” while they sang and danced.
WkK58 TIL: Charles Darwin terraformed Ascension Island in the Atlantic by bringing hundreds of non-native plants from all over the world. The mix of flora is not found anywhere else together naturally.
PY5RV TIL they're called potholes because, Roman potters would dig up parts of the clay road to use for their craft, creating holes made by potters, "potholes"