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TIL mathematician George Dantzig was late to class one day in college and copied down a few problems he saw on the board. Thinking they were homework, he completed and turned them in not realizing they were actually two famous unsolved problems in statistics.

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JYRv8 TIL the tradition of putting Christmas lights up outside started in Denver, CO on Christmas Eve, 1914. D.D. Sturgeon, founder of Sturgeon Electric, wanted to give his ill son some Christmas joy, so he wrapped his pine trees with electric bulbs, which were dipped in red and green paint.
e0PNb TIL In tropical rainforest ecosystems, dung is a very valuable and limited resource, so instead randomly searching for it on the forest floor, dung beetles actually wait by the anus of the monkey. They grab it as it falls out and actually fall to earth with it.
yVGMJ TIL that during a trip to Moscow, then Vice-President Richard Nixon was exposed to high levels of ionising radiation while staying at the US ambassador's residence. After Secret Service agents loudly complained the next day, radiation levels dropped.
BgaVr TIL that Japanese had a branch of Unit 731 in Singapore during WW2 that manufactured bio weapons
618J TIL that on September 11th 1973, US-backed General Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected leader of Chile, Salvadore Allende. Pinochet ordered an air strike on the Presidential Palace, labor activists and famous folk guitarists were rounded up for torture, disappeared, and killed.