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TIL the word "hello" was only first published in 1827, and was used as a greeting following the invention of the telephone, after beating out Alexander Graham Bell's preferred greeting, "ahoy"

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Z81xp TIL the old man who died in the Mt St Helens eruption was once sunk by a U-boat, smuggled booze, threw his ex-wife into a lake during arguments, got park rangers drunk, impersonated game wardens, assaulted taxmen, hated hippies, chased off a Supreme Court Justice and died with his cats on a volcano
ANALa TIL that the cute little male Mardo engages in such frenzied mating, that it dies shortly after due to stress
OGDR7 TIL Humans kill somewhere between 100 & 273 million sharks annually . Most are slaughtered exclusively for their fins to make a soup that is unhealthy—the tissue contains high levels of methylmercury. Population declines since the 1970s: blacktip = 93%, tiger = 97%, bull/dusky/hammerhead = 98%.
nepdb TIL that Kate Bush, global art rock icon (e.g., 1978 hit "Wuthering Heights"), is pretty much unknown in the United States, despite her incredible success in the rest of the world (everyone of her albums having gone platinum in the UK) .
W7Gl8 TIL about the Republic of Winston, a county that, during the American Civil War, attempted to secede from the state of Alabama. Their thinking was, " if a state could secede from the Union, then a county could secede from the state."