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TIL In Japan, Splintered baseball bats are given a new lease on life by being turned into kattobashi: "a mash-up of the Japanese word for chopsticks and a baseball chant that translates as 'get a big hit.”

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Yp5AW TIL mercy dogs were trained during World War I to comfort mortally wounded soldiers as they died in no man's land
nWjnG TIL The first observatory discovered in the Americas is the Chankillo Archaeoastronomical Complex. It is a prehistoric site (250-200 BC), located on the north-central coast of Peru, in the Casma Valley.
WkPJ4 TIL that for three months a man named Kasongo Ilunga was the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Minister of Trade and vice president of the UNAFEC Party despite, apparently, not actually existing.
Y76ZB TIL that the author of "Goodnight Moon" died following a routine operation at age 42, and did not live to see the success of her book. She bequeathed the royalties to Albert Clarke, the nine-year-old son of her neighbor, who squandered the millions the book earned him.
MBW7 TIL toilet paper companies are increasing margins by 1) shrinking the size of each “square” 2) increasing the size of the tube 3) shrinking the width of the roll and 4) decreasing the number of sheets per roll, all to make up for other paper products’ sales falling