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TIL Stan Lee created The X-men as 'mutants' because he didn't want to explain how they got their powers. They were BORN with their powers.

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R7p88 TIL Black Bears are killed for their skins to make Marge Simpson type hats for the Queen's Guards. In 2015, they purchased 122 hats for £1,224 each. There have been calls by animal rights groups to phase out this practice.
LQbJv TIL Nazi Germany, Francoist Spain, and the Soviet Union repressed Esperanto usage. The Nazis banned it because its creator was a Jew. Spain repressed it because Catalan nationalists used it heavily. Stalin banned it because the Association of Soviet Esperantists was thought to be a spy organization.
nWd6b TIL that as far as 5,000 B.C., people believed the false notion that the unmistakable pain that we now recognize as a toothache was caused by a tiny tooth worm, which was thought to bore into its victims’ teeth.
GY5Rj TIL There is an annual Olympiad for high school Chemistry. It began in 1968 in Prague, and had 3 countries participate. It now includes 75 countries, each sending one student team of 4. There is a practical exam, followed by a written exam. Both can be up to 5 hours in length.
rNk1M TIL about Lake Natron in Tanzania, which is so dangerously alkaline thanks to the magmatic limestone from a nearby volcano, any animal that dies and falls in is mummified. The only animals that go there are lesser flamingos, who use it as a mating ground, and even they sometimes die.