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TIL buffets are called "vikings" in Japan. This is because a Japanese restaurant manager went to Sweden and liked smörgåsbords so much he copied the idea at his restaurant. This Swedish word was too hard to pronounce in Japanese, so the word "vikings" was used instead after a employee suggested it.

Be9k TIL that after the Hey Arnold episode titled “Arnold Betrays Iggy” was released on television, it received such negativity from fans and critics that series creator, Craig Bartlett, along with the show writers wrote out apologies for how terrible the episode was.
gr8J9 TIL in 1952, Jimmy Carter led a team of nuclear scientists in disassembling a Canadian nuclear reactor undergoing meltdown. To accomplish this, Carter, alongside other American military personnel, personally lowered himself into the reactor to disassemble it by hand.
6E7V8 TIL that Andrew Carnegie, starting in the late 1800s, funded the construction of almost 1700 public libraries across the country, and over 800 abroad, for any town that would agree to set aside the land, and 10% of the construction cost annually to maintain it.
gMNBL TIL that in thanks to Benjamin Franklin, all electrical diagrams (at least in the U.S.) are technically backwards (in terms of electron flow/direction). He assumed the flow of electricity originated from the positive terminal of a current source, and traveled to the negative terminal.
D6mY TIL: That Abraham Lincoln faced chronic depression. He would not carry knives for fear he would use them on himself.