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TIL of Snorri Thorfinnsson, an Icelander who was the first child of European descent to be born in the Americas, in the early 11th century. His parents were explorers Thorfinn Karlsefni and Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir. He is one of the two main figures responsible for the Christianisation of Iceland.

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a8ryL TIL that Stephen Hawking had to be convinced to drop every equation in the manuscript of A Brief History of Time except for E = mc^2 because supposedly every equation would cut the number of people interested in half.
KYDL9 TIL that the German equivalent of Renaissance Faires is "Indianer Camps". Germans meticulously re-create the Wild West and dress up as Native Americans and cowboys.
deaK TIL in 1999, Harvard physicist Lene Hau was able to slow down light to 17 meters per second and in 2001, was able to stop light completely.
e06r6 TIL there is a bird that lacks a singing voice to attract mates -- instead it beats its wings faster than the speed of sound to create sonic booms that can be heard by all the females in the area
9VrG TIL that Edwin Land invented the Polaroid camera when his three year old daughter asked him why she couldn’t see a photo he had taken of her right away.