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TIL There are still over 5 million Kurds who adhere to ancient Mithraic (Kurdish) religions. They are the last nation in the MidEast to still largely practice a non-Abrahamic faith. Mithraism was popular among Roman Legions and the mystery religion has its roots in Kurdish regions of the MidEast.

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awR59 TIL that during the American Civil War, several divisions of the confederate army had a large snowball fight. It started when a couple of hundred men from Texas plotted a friendly fight with men from Arkansas, which spiralled into a brawl involving 9,000 soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia.
rXl0 TIL mail-order marriages are less likely to end in divorce than marriages overall in the United States
5b08 TIL that a homeless heroin addict, James Bowen, got clean with the help of a stray cat, Bob, whom he found injured in 2007. James wrote a best-selling book, and in 2016 a movie was released starring Bob as himself.
rN5Y4 TIL that in 2002 members of a simulated Mars mission in Utah uncovered an actual dinosaur fossil when on a mock spacewalk
N7EON TIL about Emilie du Châtelet, a scientist who in 1749 feared that bearing a child at 42 would be the last thing she did. She worked furiously on a magnum opus that would eventually change the world of physics. Within days of completing her work, she gave birth to a daughter and died soon after.