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TIL of the great auk, an extinct bird resembling penguins and living in the north. The last pair were strangled to death in the 19th century.

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l77jr TIL that about one in 2,000 people in the UK is a carrier of variant CJD, or "mad cow" disease, linked to eating contaminated beef. Relatively few people who catch the infectious agent develop symptoms and it's unknown if they can transmit it to others.
Zo1G TIL When the half-millennium-old Tiananmen Gate was found to be falling down in the 1960s, it was secretly replaced, bit by bit, with an exact replica, in a successful conspiracy that involved nearly 3,000 people who managed to keep it a secret for years.
g7NL TIL The Actors of Mad Men Smoke Herbal Cigarettes
DA9r TIL a Harvard/Google study found the English language to contain 1,022,000 words
VBYg0 TIL that during Germany's invasion of Russia, Joseph Goebbels sent a plea to the citizens of Germany to send in their winter clothing for the troops. This resulted in many Nazis on the grim Russian front wearing incongruously festive Christmas outfits.