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TIL of Manaus, a Brazilian city of 2 million people deep in the Amazon Rainforest. It was once a notoriously extravagant rubber boom town in the 1800s. An opera house was built with European marble & crystal. One visiting opera troupe had half of its performers die from yellow fever in one season.

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x6o8w TIL the length of the US rail network is twice that of Europe
VMyDB TIL: Sushi Parasites have increased by 238 times since 1970s according to the University of Washington. Scientists said this is likely due to humans recovering the seal, sea lion, and whale populations under Marine Mammal Protection Act which allows the parasites to fester.
ekDk TIL that during WWII, the Gestapo’s most wanted person was New Zealand born Allied agent Nancy Wake. Among her numerous exploits, she killed an SS soldier with her bare hands, to prevent him from raising the alarm during an undercover raid.
LoZr Today I learned Peter Jackson owns the movie rights to a book series about Dragons in the Napoleonic War
x6LvB TIL Of the Curse of the Ninth, the superstition that a composer will die before finishing their tenth symphony. Beethoven and Schubert both died after their ninth symphonies. Gustav Mahler attempted to beat the curse with musical structural changes but he also died before finishing his tenth.