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TIL In 1908, Leo Tolstoy wrote "A Letter to a Hindu" to the Indian revolutionary and internationalist scholar, Taraknath Das. Tolstoy's letter explained that Indians needed to confront British imperialism with love and nonviolence, which inspired Mohandas Gandhi.

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E0Vd TIL Scientists isolated bacterium from a man’s intestines & used it to fatten mice specially bred to resist obesity. The microbe made up 35% of microorganisms in his digestive tract & a diet formulated to kill off those bacteria reduced the levels to below detection. He lost 113 pounds in 23 weeks.
0dNEy TIL: There is something called 'The Glitter Conspiracy'. One of the largest producers of glitter doens't want to tell what tge glitter is used for. Theories range from the use in explosives to boats
0dmwv TIL although Frank Sinatra & Marlon Brando's feud was reportedly mild at the start of production for Guys and Dolls, Brando began to hate Sinatra because he kept calling Brando “Mumbles” to make him angry. So Brando pretended to forget his lines during a scene which forced Sinatra to eat repeatedly.
pYMre TIL Pete Conrad said "Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me." after stepping onto a landing pad on the moon in order to win a $500 bet he made to prove NASA didn't script it. After stepping on the lunar surface, he said "Oooh, is that soft & queasy."
kVj1 TIL that Thor Heyerdahl stated that ancient people from South America could have settled in Polynesia, but most anthropologists didn’t believe him. So in 1947 he built a primitive raft and made the 101-day journey himself.