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TIL that Xanadu is an alternative name for Shangdu, the summer capital of Kublai khan and the yuan dynasty in general. The name Xanadu itself and its meaning as a metaphor for a place of opulence was popularized by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his poem about Kublai khan.

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x6onD TIL that Tokyo was built on water and European visitors often compared it to Venice
wLlyE TIL There was once a camel in North America with a neck like a giraffe.
9M0Q TIL that there is a legend that the Ottoman Sultan intended to send £10,000 to Ireland to aid in the Starvation, but was stopped by Queen Victoria who had only sent £2000. Instead he sent £1000 and three ships full of food. A letter of thanks from the Irish is in the Ottoman Archives.
rNmYo TIL excavations near the city of Nazareth unearthed 100,000 year old human remains. The human skeletons were associated with red ochre which was found only alongside the bones, suggesting that the burials were symbolic in nature. This is the earliest evidence of symbolic burial ever discovered.
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