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TIL the streets of London were once paved in gold: fool's gold. Martin Frobisher shipped over a thousand tons of fool's gold from what's now Canada to London under the impression he was shipping gold ore. When it was later discovered it was no more than iron pyrite to use it for road metalling.

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GdGN TIL that many people consider Die Hard to be a Christmas movie.
Zpeyp TIL of ray cat, a proposed kind of cat that would be genetically engineered to glow in the presence of nuclear radiation to act as a long-term nuclear warning. This is done by inventing traditions of folklore which spread the idea that people should flee when a cat changes color
v1Ljx TIL Helen Keller took over the controls of a Douglas Skymaster airplane for 20 minutes while flying over the Mediterranean during a trip from Rome to Paris. The instructions were relayed from the pilot to Polly Thompson, and then to Helen through fingerspelling.
Q6yk TIL: After WW2 the Japanese Admiral who invented the idea of kamikaze pilots committed ritual suicide, seppuku, as an apology. After cutting through his abdomen he refused the customary beheading, instead slowly dying over several hours.
78VBr TIL L'Anse aux Meadows is the oldest known European settlement in North America. Discovered in 1960 in present-day Newfoundland, its origin was confirmed to be Viking from the 11th century based on artifacts and evidence consistent with other known Norse examples in Greenland and Iceland