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897

TIL an object known as the Utsuro-bune, meaning "hollow boat" in Japanese, containing a young woman who did not speak Japanese washed up on the shore of Japan in 1803. The woman had red hair, wore clothes of strange fabrics, and held a box she did not allow anyone else to touch.

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R7Dp8 TIL: Couples that cuddle can become addicted to one another. Symptoms of withdraw can occur when apart as a result of the hormone oxytocin, "the cuddling drug."
P1xWg TIL that in England, suicide was considered a felony "punished at common law by burial in the public highway with a stake driven through his body." Attempted suicide was a misdemeanor.
6EZVW TIL in 1985, MTV ran a contest based on John Mellencamp's song Pink Houses, where they gave away a pink house. Unfortunately, the house was on a toxic waste dump in Indiana. Not wanting to poison his fans, they were forced to buy another house. Also included was a garage full of Hawaiian Punch.
5VVGD TIL The largest US industrial spill was in Kingston TN. 2008 with 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash equivalent of 1.1 billion US gallons was released into the surrounding environment.
ODJX TIL of a British proposal to have a sniper assassinate Hitler that was vetoed because it was ‘unsportsmanlike’