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TIL on January 1 2019, works published in 1923 will enter the public domain. These will be the first works to do so since the 1998 copyright extension commonly known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.

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R55g8 TIL In politics and economics, a Potemkin village is any construction (literal or figurative) whose sole purpose is to provide an external façade to a country that is faring poorly, making people believe that the country is faring better.
LQkLP TIL people in the Middle Ages believed the equator to be impassably hot. Therefore, either Jesus would’ve have to appear separately to the Southern Hemisphere or its natives would be damned to Hell under the beliefs of the time.
6989W TIL: of "Raining Blobs in Oakville,"** a phenomenon that occurred in Oakville, Washington, in 1994, where gelatinous blobs fell from the sky. These biomass blobs were at first reported to contain human white blood cells, while this was debunked their origin remains a mystery
4Xyr5 TIL: of the Church of Universal Suffrage. A religion in the United States that believes all U.S. election days are a religious holiday, legally allowing all members to request ballots by mail.
XEAX6 TIL about Gladys West, a black woman who was inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame earlier this month for creating a precise mathematical model of the Earth in the 1980's that would be critical for the development of GPS technology.