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TIL In Sri Lanka bread is delivered fresh starting at 5:30AM, in special TukTuks playing Beethoven's Für Elise loudly. While Für Elise is the song of choice for choon paan sellers, it’s not used exclusively, and some opt for Christmas carols, It’s a Small World, or other equally ubiquitous tunes.

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yQwba TIL that the manual alphabet for sign language was created by a Spanish Benedictine monk named Pedro Ponce de León in the 16th century as a pushback against the ‘Deaf are dumb’ prejudice that began during the Renaissance
5YlxB TIL Cincinnati has a fully-built, but never used subway system from the 1920s complete with over 2 miles of tunnels and untouched stations nearly a century old. There was an attempt to convert it to a light rail system in 2002 by raising taxes half-a-cent for the residents, but voters shot it down.
ae59 TIL that to show how Classical Chinese had become an impractical language, linguist Chao Yuen Ren wrote a 92-character poem in which every syllable has the sound “shi”. The poem “Shī Shì shí shī shǐ” translates to “Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den”.
EgZAx TIL the Swedish band Ace of Base got its name after member Ulf Ekberg watched the video for Motörhead's "Ace of Spades" while hungover on New Year's Day in 1991.
N5V8 TIL that there is recorded evidence of a ‘clapping noise’ produced by the northern lights, proving folktales of the phenomenon true.