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TIL In the winter of 1295, Marco Polo and his brothers returned to Venice after 24 years of traveling across Asia and with them they brought one incredible novelty - asbestos fabric made by the Mongolians.

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75E7 TIL the process of seppuku, suicide by disemboweling to preserve honor, eventually became so ritualized that the abdominal cut was not even needed. The samurai merely reached for a fan instead of a knife, and doing so signaled the merciful beheading strike by the samurai’s assistant.
RY5Q TIL billionaire Warren Buffet ($66.7 billion net worth) still lives in the same house he bought in 1958 for $31,500.
LkQ6r TIL of the Mondragon Corporation, a Basqué company of >70000 workers that operates as a worker's cooperative. It exists as a quasi socialist enterprise in a capitalist system.
Br8RW TIL a C-130 holds the record for the largest and heaviest plane to land on an aircraft carrier. In 1963 it made 29 touch-and-gos, 21 takeoffs and 21 full stop landings all without a catapult or tail hooks!
8aR78 TIL a wooden ladder has been leaning in the same place since at least the 1750s, and cannot be moved due to disagreements between six different sects of Christianity