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TIL scientists still don’t fully understand Triboluminescence, the phenomenon responsible for making wintergreen Life Savers glow in the dark

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lonW1 TIL in 1976, a mule named Lord Fauntleroy beat 200 horses in the 3,500-mile Great American Horse Race. Along the way, Norton, the mule’s rider, would often stop to help other riders, beat everyone by 10 hours, and retired with the $25,000 prize while calling himself the “Great American Horseman.”
R5m48 TIL that Celtic languages were once widely spoken across much of western and central Europe. These languages/cultures slowly succumbed to Roman and Germanic expansion, and today Celtic languages are reduced to Ireland, the UK, and Northwest France.
b99e4 TIL that before alarm clocks were neither cheap nor reliable, it was common for people in Britain and Ireland to hire a 'knocker-upper", a person who's job was to wake people by using a long stick to tap on their windows, or in some instances, they would use a pea-shooter.
b0Va TIL Pregnant women are affected by morning sickness to protect the unborn fetus in its most vulnerable stage, when organs first start developing. It clears her system (via vomit) of substances that typically carry microbes or toxins.
rRplo TIL Orwell's 1984 title likely came from a poem his wife Eileen wrote in HS called End of the Century, 1984