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TIL in 1995, current US House Speaker John Boehner was caught handing out checks from the tobacco lobby on the floor of the House of Representatives just before a vote on cutting tobacco subsidies.

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oBYK8 TIL Some scholars believe smiling was an invention of the Middle Ages and point out that not all cultures today use smiles to show happiness. This challenges the popular notion of 7 universal facial expressions.
EgvP7 TIL Lorenzo Bernini's altarpiece "the ecstasy of Saint Teresa", in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, has been described by critics as "the most astounding peep show in art". In victorian times, critics wanted it destroyed, while others have argued that it doesn't contain anything sexual
16aoP TIL that the Korean War never ended. Although the fighting between North and South Korea and their respective allies ended in July 1953 when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, no peace treaty was ever signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war, engaged in a frozen conflict.
O8AY TIL Doctor Seuss’s first book took 27 publisher rejections before it finally found a taker, Chicken Soup for the Soul was passed on by over 100, A Time to Kill by 26, and George Orwell was told Animal Farm would never sell because “it is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.”
kOb91 TIL Hard Drives are Drive "C:/" because originally PCs only had up to 2 floppy disk drives labelled A and B, some time later hard disks got added and became drive C.