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TIL of Norilsk, the world's northernmost city with over 100,000 habitants, where soil polution is so intense corporations could just start mining it instead of the ore deposits. Temperatures there often reach bellow -25°C (-13°F).

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grjW4 TIL Robert Kehoe discovered reports that the chemical benzidine caused bladder cancer. His client, DuPont, made benzidine. Instead of alerting the American public, Kehoe stuffed the report in a box. The moldy records were unearthed decades later when DuPont’s employees, stricken with cancer, sued.
KO45B TIL Tondrakians were members of an anti-feudal, heretical Christian sect that flourished in Armenia who advocated abolition of the Church, denied the immortality of the soul, afterlife, the church and its feudal rights. They supported property rights for peasants, and equality between men and women.
Bgmpd TIL J.K. Simmons found out he had landed the role of J. Jonah Jameson from a kid who was part of Spider-Man fan sites, which had leaked the news, before his agent informed him officially three hours later.
xx4B TIL bowling originated as a religious ceremony. A stone was rolled at the Kegel, which represented the Heide (heathen), and those successfully toppling it were believed to have cleansed themselves of sin.
kJo74 TIL that before the 19th century, the Versailles was often extremely dirty. Women pulled up their skirts up to pee where they stood, while some men urinated in the middle of the royal chapel. Marie-Antoinette was once hit by human waste being thrown out the window as she walked through a courtyard.