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TIL that the English lyrics for the classic Christmas carol “Deck the Halls” were originally “fill the meadcup, drain the barrel” and not “don we now our gay apparel”.

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19eX TIL bananas naturally produce a small amount of ionizing radiation, equaling 0.1 microsieverts. Large shipments of bananas are capable of setting off nuclear weapons radiation monitors at shipping ports.
xajk TIL French was the official language of England until the 14th century and they didn’t officially adopt English till 1509.
jNGZR TIL that counterintuitively, overall death rates DECREASED during both the Great Depression and the Great Recession. The main cause of this was a lack of motor vehicle accidents, but deaths from heart disease and infectious diseases also went down. Only suicide rates increased, and not by much.
jeVM TIL in the 80s, when Al Gore’s wife ‘Tipper’ and her PMRC organization instituted a nation-wide campaign to sensor rock music in the US, Jello Biafa from the Dead Kennedys confronted her on the Oprah show and quite eloquently presented a case for Freedom of Speech in music.
R548j TIL of the antimony pill, aka the everlasting pill, used in the 18th and early 19th century for stomach relief. It was reusable after pooping it out, making it very cost effective. Entire families used the same pill, which some times went through multiple generations