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TIL the first seal of Massachusetts Bay Colony showed a nude American Indian with a bush covering his groin, an arrow in his hand pointed down and a scroll over his mouth with the words "Come over and help us." This seal emphasized the missionary and commercial intentions of the first colonists.

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p8rLA TIL about Richard Francis Burton, a British "explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer, and diplomat." He spoke 29 languages, translated the Kama Sutra, and shocked Victorian England with his essays about homosexuality.
78meP TIL compostable plastic is only compostable in an industrial or commercial facility
EgDnp TIL that 1604, King James I wrote ‘A Counterblaste to Tobacco’, in which he described smoking as a ‘custome lothesome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs
e0x04 TIL During his life John Quincy Adams was: Ambassador to Prussia, Portugal, The Netherlands, and The United Kingdom, A Senator, Secretary of State, unanimously confirmed to the Supreme Court (declined), President, and finally served 9 terms as a congressman.
XENME TIL of a "body farm", where the decomposition of human corpses is studied by leaving bodies outside in a variety of topographic and climate conditions. There are facilities in US, Canada, Australia, India, and UK. Over 100 bodies are donated to the University of Tennessee facility alone every year.