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TIL the 1918 flu was recreated from a victim found in the Alaskan permafrost. Monkeys infected with the flu strain had classic symptoms of the 1918 pandemic, and died from a cytokine storm - an overreaction of the immune system. This helps to understand why healthy individuals died from the flu.

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165mW TIL that Europeans starting using the term “Aztec” to refer to the people who lived around the city of Tenochtitlan, but that’s not what they called themselves. They referred to themselves as the Mexica.
P1ne TIL: Audio cassette data storage was once so popular in some countries that radio stations would broadcast computer programs that listeners could record and then load into their computer.
aAey TIL that for unknown reasons, during a bidding war with a consortium of tech firms for Nortel’s 6,000 patents, Google bid $1,902,160,540, then $2,614,972,128, and eventually $3.14159 billion (references to Brun’s constant, Meissel–Mertens constant, and pi)
nWnbb TIL The blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield got famous through a media blitz and a series of intentional wardrobe malfunctions. Mansfield's strategically busting seams got her constant coverage, even her measurements were nationally famous. In 1960 Mansfield was in more print than anyone else on earth.
npQb TIL that the act of “giving the key to the city” is a continuation of a medieval practice where the cities would be locked at night but someone given the key could come and go as they please as an honor for something great done for the city