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TIL that the first instance of Panda Diplomacy was by Madame Chiang, who arranged for pandas to be sent to San Francisco as a dramatic way of saying thank you. The pandas received attention, but not as much as hoped, because on their way to the US, Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

Y71xx TIL the game of Go is so complex that the number of legal board positions, which has been calculated to be approximately 2.1×10^170, is far greater than the number of atoms in the observable universe, which is estimated to be on the order of 10^80.
BgB0K TIL a recent dissertation, published by a speech-language pathologist through UNC Chapel Hill Grad School, argued Dolly Partons free book program actively reinforces white privilege, heteronormativity, & the erasure of dis/abilities, non-normative gender identities & non-normative family structures.
OoVD1 TIL the act of attributing causal relationship between unrelated actions and events is called "Magical thinking", for example "If I don't brush my teeth today my dog will die", and is considered a form of OCD.
b9yRZ TIL: about “emergency backup goalies” (EBUGs) in the NHL. If a team’s primary and backup goalie are both injured during a game, anyone in the arena can be called on to suit up and play goal. The home team is always expected to have an amateur goalie in the arena.
a8Enb TIL that Ohio has its own state flag pledge that can be said in schools after the Pledge of Allegiance. The pledge was adopted in 2002 in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the state's flag.