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TIL that the British were the first to call the sport "soccer," as a shortening of "association football"

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D1evD TIL to combat the spread of smallpox during the Civil War, soldiers would find someone with cowpox, cut open their pustules, and infect themselves with it. The less harmful cowpox made them immune to smallpox, but they sometimes confused cowpox with syphilis and gave themselves an STD instead.
AdQl TIL: One time Albert Einstein was asked “How many feet are in a mile?” and he responded saying “I don’t know why would I fill my mind with facts I can in two minutes in any standard reference book”
Y78LP TIL musician Jay Ferguson not only wrote the theme song for "The Office" (US) but also wrote the popular 1970s yacht rock song "Thunder Island".
rRWyW TIL that in Mexico, Belgium, Germany, and Austria, the act of escaping from jail is not illegal in and of itself, because it's human nature to want to escape
JDX1 TIL in 1998, a woman hit and killed a cyclist when she was distracted by her Tamagotchi.