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TIL Trey Parker & Matt Stone were inspired to make ‘The Book of Mormon’ after seeing the Broadway musical 'Avenue Q’. Robert Lopez, creator of 'Avenue Q’, was inspired to make it after seeing Trey Parker & Matt Stone’s movie 'South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut’

e5eJ TIL Norman Borlaug, a late professor at Texas A&M, used his knowledge of soil science to help solve food shortage problems in various regions of the world. He won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his work, which has helped save one billion people from starving.
4XBg5 TIL: The last living person born in the 1800s died in 2017. When she was born, the last living person from the 1700s was still alive. In other words, we all lived alongside someone who lived alongside someone who was born when George Washington was president.
xVr60 TIL that a topless, laid-back statue of Abraham Lincoln stands at a federal court in Los Angeles; sculptor James Lee Hansen explained in 1941 that "from a sculpturing standpoint, it’s better to show the body without any clothes, [so] that’s why I left ’em off"
ep796 TIL that coordinates with 6 digits past the decimal are precise enough to land you within 11cm of any given location
mxrEv TIL that if you add 250ml of ethanol to 250ml of water, you get less than 500ml of liquid. This is due to strong hydrogen bonding that draws the different molecules close together, and because ethanol interferes with any open structures in the water, causing the molecules to pack closer together.