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TIL that the song ‘The Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ mentioning “scary ghost stories” is from the pre-Christianity pagan belief that the winter solstice, being the longest night, was when the dead could most easily return.

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K0BR TIL to save workers time for lunch on the new World Trade Center Building they installed a mobile Subway restaurant they moved up the building as they finished each floor.
69o6Y TIL Van Gogh gave his severed ear not to his favorite prostitute, as legend goes, but to an 18 year old maid at the brothel he frequented. Her name was Gabrielle Berlatier. Too young to work as a prostitute, she took a cleaning job to pay medical debt from receiving the newly invented rabies shot.
Z84jY TIL in the original cut of The Santa Clause Tim Allen's character looks at a phone number and says "1-800-SPANK-ME. I know that number." This scene was cut from all home media releases after a kid in Washington called the number - which led to an active sex hotline - and racked up a $400 phone bill.
E1lEo TIL the Vatican City drinks more wine per person than anywhere else in the world. Its residents consume an average of 74 litres (105 bottles) over the course of a year. About double the amount drunk by the average person in France or Italy, and triple the quantity consumed in the UK.
D1awD TIL in 1934, Swiss banking secrecy laws were strengthened to encourage Jews of Central & Eastern Europe, fearful of Nazis, to hide their assets in Swiss banks. After a majority of those depositors died during the Holocaust, the laws were used to wrongfully deny their heirs access to those accounts