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TIL that sand creates amazing geometric patterns when placed on a tone generator plate

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VGdQ TIL that IKEA hired Thai translators to carefully scrutinize product names four years before opening a store in Thailand because some IKEA product names, when literally translated into Thai, suggest sexual acts.
bvJQ TIL that after needing 13 liters of blood for a surgery at the age of 13, a man named James Harrison pledged to donate blood once he turned 18. It was discovered that his blood contained a rare antigen which cured Rhesus disease. He has donated blood a record 1,000 times and saved 2,000,000 lives.
BgMbb TIL that Hawaii was a sovereign self-governing kingdom all the way up until 1893, totally unassociated with the U.S., until a coup d'état that year by 13 businessmen and 162 U.S. troops, with the openly stated goal of annexing the islands. (They succeeded.)
OGeja TIL the 2019 collapse of the Thomas Cook travel agency triggered UK's largest peacetime repatriation. Called Operation Matterhorn, over 140,000 British tourists were recovered with 150 aircraft in 746 flights. During that time, the UK government briefly was UK's 5th largest airline
6EARW TIL of the Ikh Khorig, or Great Taboo: an area of almost a hundred square miles in Mongolia believed to contain Genghis Khan's resting place. The area was patrolled by elite guards and their descendants for centuries, and was only opened to archaeologists in 1989.