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TIL in 1959, Nikita Khrushchev described Mao Zedong to a Chinese diplomat as an "old boot that needs to be thrown out". 'Old boot' in Chinese meant prostitute, which led Chinese officials to believe Mao had been insulted as an 'old whore' due to misinterpretation.

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e0VBk TIL in France they have short story vending machines in public locations. You can select 1, 3, or 5 minutes, and the machine prints a story on a strip of paper for free.
1da8 TIL that in Japan they have an expression to describe the sudden urge to poop when you’re in a book store
bEDN TIL that a 2006 study concluded that prehistoric predators had excellent vision, surpassing modern birds of prey. Compared to a bald eagle (whose vision is 4x better than ours), Tyrannosaurus rex had eyes that were 13x as precise as a human’s eyesight, meaning it could see prey from 6 km away.
07oj TIL that during WW II the 603rd unit was designated as Camouflage Engineers. Many of the soldiers were recruited from arts schools and set designers. Their objective was not only to teach camouflage, but to deceive the enemy through the art of design. They became known as the Ghost Army
OGJ9X TIL that Lensey Namioka, born in China, has a name that cannot be written in Chinese. Her linguist father found two Chinese syllables, "len" and "sey", that aren't used in words so don't have Chinese characters. He named his next daughter "Lensey"; she is the only known person with the name.