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TIL that when Indonesia’s Mount Tambora erupted, humanity was swept into a period of global erratic temperatures that gave way to the name “The Year without Summer.” This also inspired Mary Shelley to write “Frankenstein.”

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dBRB TIL that Moose are excellent swimmers and are the only deer species capable of feeding underwater utilizing closing nostrils. That’s why they have such long muzzles.
R5bAQ TIL that in 1945, the US Navy converted a former concrete production barge into a floating ice cream factory. It was towed around the Pacific to provide ice cream to Allied troops, and could produce 10 gallons of ice cream every 7 minutes.
Wk1G4 TIL the Coens Brothers, Glenn Ficarra, and Terry Zwigoff first pitched "Bad Santa" to Universal Studios, which rejected it on the grounds that "[i]t was the most foul, disgusting, misogynistic, anti-Christmas, anti-children thing we could imagine." Miramax instead financed and distributed the movie.
v1x9r TIL When Time magazine named China's Deng Xiaoping as 1985 Man of the Year, it prompted Taiwanese leader Chiang Ching-Kuo to quicken the pace of Taiwan's democratization. Deng invited Chiang to meet with him but he declined, on the grounds that he did not believe in the Communist Party of China
w8VE TIL that former Grand Wizard of the KKK David Duke wrote a self-help book for women under the pseudonym Dorothy Vanderbilt, titled “Finders-Keepers” which contains sexual, diet, fashion, cosmetic and relationship advice, as well as advice on vaginal exercises, fellatio, and anal sex.