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TIL - In ancient legend, elves weren’t the noble creatures portrayed in Tolkien’s stories but powerful and dangerous supernatural beings who were more likely to harm humans than to help them. Their name says so: it comes from an ancient Germanic term for a nightmare.

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R5KK6 TIL that a message in a bottle traveled from Fiji to Australia over 8 years.
5YOYR TIL the song Killing Me Softly was originally penned by Lori Lieberman, and described the night she went to a small show and listened to Don McLean singing a B-side to American Pie. It went on to be covered by Roberta Flack, then the FuGees, but Lori was never credited.
OX5R TIL that one of the first things free blacks could grow, eat, and sell were watermelons. It became a symbol of freedom that was corrupted into a negative stereotype by southern whites and still persists today.
dyLE TIL Congo’s president Mobutu publicly stated that “It’s okay to steal a little”, which was consistent with the national mentality that whatever the country had was also yours, as long it is just a little.
VwL4 TIL that a Finnish sniper had over 705 confirmed kills. 505 of which were from his Mosin Nagant rifle, which he used only his iron sights. The rest of the kills were from his submachine gun.