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TIL Author Paek Nam-nyong is a household name in North Korea and his bestseller novel "Friend" became the first state-sanctioned novel available to English readers

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9Yo97 TIL The English horn is traditionally heard almost exclusively in symphony orchestras and has been stereotyped of playing only sad, prayerful, and pastoral music since Hector Berlioz first described it as suitable for only those sentiments in his 1844 treatise
QVYM TIL that before he was a celebrity chef and television personality, Alton Brown spent 10 years as a cinematographer and commercial director. He only left the business for culinary school because he found cooking shows “dull and uninformative.”
b9M1E TIL Tongan custom dictates that one should not imitate the actions of persons one is honoring, so at Elisabeth II's coronation; the Queen of Tonga rode her carriage in the pouring rain refusing to pull the hood up as Elisabeth did.
XAQD TIL That in 2004, Ann Coulter gave a speech at the University of Arizona. Two men in the audience threw custard pies at her and were arrested. One website wrote that she was attacked by “Al Pieda”.
nW7mr TIL aquarium employees told the rap group Salt-N-Pepa that when they put their hit song "Push It" on, the sharks would start mating