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TIL that German was the most-studied foreign language in the U.S. in the years before and even during World War I. About a quarter of high schoolers studied it right before the U.S. entered the war, but only about 1% of high schools still taught it after the war.

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Wkj8L TIL about Paul Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement, a measure for the credibility of a rebuttal to an argument, explored in his 2008 essay (link to essay in comment)
jNBXn TIL that a Scottish woman can't feel pain or anxiety and is very happy and optimistic all the time all because of a rare genetic mutation which increases the brain chemical "Anandamide". She was given 1 g of paracetamol or acetaminophen after a trapeziectomy where people usually need morphine.
nWnX9 TIL about Snake Island, an island off the coast of São Paulo, Brazil which is closed to the public for safety reasons. It is the only known home of the endangered Golden Lancehead, whose cytotoxic venom is up to 5 times stronger than other pit vipers.
e0QpL TIL that Shantaram Siddi became the first Indian legislator of African descent, when he was appointed as MLC by the ruling BJP in the state of Karnataka on 22 Jul 2020. India has about 50K Siddi people who descended from Bantu people of east Africa, and a third of them call Karnataka their home.
WvgX TIL that in World War I, Charles de Gaulle would crawl up to German trenches under the cover of darkness and listen in on conversations, gathering vital intelligence.