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TIL in the 13th century, Genghis Khan proposed “friendship and peace” with the fellow nomadic Khwarezmian Empire in Persia. The Khwarezmia shah ordered a Mongol trade delegation killed, prompting Khan to invade the empire, kill 1.25 million, and destroy the Khwarezmian Empire.

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b9GjE TIL of remittance men - useless sons of Victorian British upper middle class families being given an allowance by their own family to be as far away from family as possible, typically settling in very remote parts of the British Empire.
XEn4k TIL that Edison used Bamboo filaments supplied by his assistant from Kyoto until he developed Tungsten filament and the shrine hosts a 'light festival' complete with lit bamboo lanterns and the American anthem to honor this exchange
wLEdo TIL that blue eyes don’t have blue pigment and are instead blue for the same reason that water and the sky are blue: they scatter light so that only blue light reflects out
VVV4 TIL Starbucks charged rescue workers for bottled water during 9/11.
DQwRD TIL that singer Lenny Kravitz was named after his uncle, a soldier in the U.S. Army who posthumously received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during the Korean War.