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TIL the United Way released 1.5 mil. balloons over Cleveland in '86. They blanketed the town leading to car crashes, an airport shutdown, stampeding horses, and the suspension of a Coast Guard search for 2 missing boaters who eventually washed ashore dead.

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yQ6Ka TIL the elite schools of the Aztec Empire, where you studied subjects such as medicine, astronomy, engineering, theology, and law were called "Houses of Tears" due to incredibly high standards and chores placed on students
rR5je TIL that, in 1838, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story in which four shipwreck survivors were forced to eat a cabin boy named Richard Parker. 46 years later, the situation was mirrored uncannily in real life, as four shipwreck survivors were forced to eat a cabin boy named Richard Parker.
jNG7N TIL Whilst the City of London area has a daily estimated footfall of roughly half a million, there's only a resident population of 9,400
7pMO TIL that (very) rough estimates suggest that Wikipedia contains about 4% of the extant sum of all human knowledge, with 5.6 million red links (and growing).
6oDZ TIL: There is a glass toaster called the Bugatti Toaster that will be released in the US next year