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TIL: In 2009, a researcher received a grant to explore novel materials for applications in electronics. When he tried heating the oxides of manganese, yttrium and indium at 2,000 °F, he inadvertently found the bluest blue pigment to date.

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ZBXa TIL that Merlin the Wizard was possibly based on the legend of a real person, Myrddin Wyllt, a bard who went crazy watching the defeat and slaughter of his Celtic King Gwenddoleu and his army, and spent the rest of his life in the forest living among animals as a madman.
R5P11 TIL about Qanats, which is a water supply system that was developed in ancient Iran for the purpose of transporting usable water to the surface from an aquifer or a well through an underground aqueduct. Proving crucial to water supply in areas with hot and dry climates.
NoYQ TIL that horror/supernatural writer Anne Rice’s birth name was Howard Allen Frances O'Brien. Her parents changed it at age six, it after she introduced herself in school to a nun as “Anne,” a name she found pretty, rather than give her birth name out of embarrassment.
7r40L TIL that a short stretch of highway in Arizona counts off exit numbers, road signs and markers in kilometers due to a push in the 80's to convert the country's measurement system to metric.
8ekLX TIL that in the US state of Florida, tyramine is a Schedule I drug, illegal in “any material [at] any quantity,” making most wines, cheeses, and chocolates, among other things, technically illegal.