› added 8 months ago

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Today I learned that Alexander the Great, who conquered a good section of the world, was only 32 years old when died.

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x04o TIL that during a visit to Boeing, Soviet scientists secretly applied adhesive to the bottom of their shoes in order to covertly collect metal samples from the floor.
Y7myx TIL Cao Xueqin is considered to be China's greatest novelist, but little is known of his life. He spent ten years writing "A Dream in Red Mansions" from 1740 to 1750 but the last chapters were written by a different author. The novel was not published until 1791, nearly 30 years after Cao's death
69NKQ TIL that over three quarters of the grapefruit produced in Texas is from Atomic Gardening, a form of mutation breeding where plants are exposed to radiation.
Blvb TIL Jack O'Lanterns started in 18th century Ireland and were originally carved into turnips. These turnips were used to ward away the evil spirit of a blacksmith named Jack. When the Irish came to America, turnips were hard to find, but pumpkins weren’t, and thus the pumpkin carving became tradition
Eg49w TIL The name of the family in the Swiss Family Robinson is not actually Robinson (which isn't a Swiss name) but refers to the novel being part of the "Robinsonade" genre of literature, referring to Robinson Crusoe