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TIL In Soviet Russia, the director of the state-run TV channel was fired after playing the pop song "Moskau" by the German band Dschinghis Khan during a New Year show.

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KOrQB TIL that "potter's field," a term synonymous with mass graves, has a Biblical origin. It refers to an extremely clay-rich parcel of land in Jerusalem, purchased with the 30 pieces of silver which Judas returned to the chief priests. Useless for farming, the land was used to bury strangers.
oByv8 TIL Thích Quảng Đức was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. He didn't make a single move. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngô Đình Diệm.
LQ7Md TIL of Sada Abe (1905–after 1971), a geisha and prostitute who, in 1936, strangled her lover and cut off his genitals, which she carried in her kimono. The case became a national obsession in Japan and inspired many works of art. She served 5 years and later wrote an autobiography.
v10lK TIL that the 1905 film The Little Train Robbery is the first ever parody film. The film is a sequel to the serious 1903 film The Great Train Robbery. Both films had the same director.
epyRL TIL In central China, villagers used to consume dinosaur fossils as traditional medicine, believing they were the bones of ancient flying dragons with special healing powers for various illnesses.