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TIL Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, was able to view his obituary before he died due to a news-outlet mishap. Due to all the horrible things he read about himself, including being called “the merchant of death”, he decided to dedicate his fortune to the creation of the Nobel Prize.

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xLr1 TIL a study at Duke University showed that male rhesus macaques will give up privileges to be allowed to see a female monkey’s ass: “Virtually all [male] monkeys will give up juice to see female hindquarters … they really value the images.”
6EYe8 TIL about Leo Tolstoy's 1908 "A Letter to a Hindu," which had an indelible impact on Mohandes Gandhi's nonviolent resistance philosophy. Gandhi struck up a correspondence with Tolstoy after reading the letter, reprinted it in his own newspaper and even translated the letter to his native Gujarati.
Zp5gY TIL at Christmastime in Ethiopia, villagers play a long-distance hockey-like game called Gena in the space between villages but with no defined boundaries.
b9B54 TIL in 1993, a 5 year old set his house on fire, killing his 2 year old sister. The mother blamed Beavis and Butt-head for making fire seem "cool". As a result, MTV removed all references of fire from their past and future episodes (not the 2011 run) and rescheduled it for 10:30pm instead of 7:00pm
OGn77 TIL Baleen whale, one of the largest mammals in the world, can make the loudest sound of any animal on earth—up to 188 decibels, which is as loud as a jet plane