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TIL Edgar Allan Poe wrote Eureka, an obscure book, in 1848 in which he insisted that the universe began in "one instantaneous flash" - more than a century before astronomers hypothesized the Big Bang Theory.

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gM0BD TIL One of the most successful KGB agents of the Cold War had the codename, Fedora. He infiltrated the UN and sabotaged the US by providing false information ie. a Fedora tip.
OG0PR TIL at the end of hostilities during WW1, a German U-boat surrendered and was supposed to be towed to France, but the tow cable snapped and the submarine washed up on a beach in Hastings, UK. Thousands of tourists visited to see her until she was broken up in 1921.
QNKda TIL after murdering a woman in 1821, convicted killer John Horwood was hanged, had his body dissected and his skin was used to bind a book that contained the details of his crime in a practice called anthropodermic bibliopegy.
b94aN TIL Soap and water don't kill germs; they work by mechanically removing them from your hands. Running water by itself does a pretty good job of germ removal, but soap increases the overall effectiveness by pulling unwanted material off the skin and into the water.
epAKJ TIL Peljidiin Genden 9th Prime Minister of Mongolia was brought to Moscow to meet Stalin and shouted "You bloody Georgian, you have become a virtual Russian Czar". Genden then reportedly slapped Stalin, broke his pipe, and hinted that Mongolia was considering an alliance with the Empire of Japan.