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TIL the voting age in Austria is 16

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6Q88 TIL that Garret Morgan, the son of former slaves with only an elementary school education, invented a belt fastener for sewing machines, the first human hair straightening solution, an early form of the gas mask (used in WWI), and traffic signal technology (which he sold to GE for $40K in 1923).
XEMEX TIL when asked who the most famous person in the world is, British children under 10 placed the Queen third, God second, and Simon Cowell number one.
dD7y9 TIL an autograph Beethoven manuscript was missing for 115 yrs until a librarian at a seminary in Philadelphia stumbled across it in 2005. It contains annotations by Beethoven which provide insight into his thought processes in the months before his death when he was deaf. It was sold for £1.1 milion
gMoxL TIL if you lived in a basement all you life you would live 90 billionths of a second longer than those living on the surface. This is because where the pull of gravity is stronger, the slower time moves. Time moves faster upstairs.
BrGad TIL that Canada didn't burn the White House, rather it was British troops fresh from warring Napoleon's Army, stationed in Bermuda, who set fire to Washington DC.