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TIL of the Catatumbo lightning storm of Venezuela.At least 300 days of the year a vast raging storm forms at the mouth of the Catatumbo River. It’s lightning, unequaled in strength, can be seen from 250 miles away and was used as a navigational beacon by colonial sailors.

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JYWxV TIL of the Lake Taal snake, a species of marine snake that evolved to adapt to a freshwater environment. It is found in a single Phillipine lake that was cut off from the sea less than 500 years ago. This means that the snake evolved into a new species in just a few centuries.
d8xod TIL that the word "dude" comes from the word "doodle," as in Yankee Doodle, which means fool or simpleton
OoAmY TIL: Italian herbalist Pietro Andrae Matthioli declared the red tomato as a mandrake, a halogenic poisonous planet root long associated with sexual desires, hallucinations and temptation because the tomato was similar looking to nightshade, an actual poisonous fruit.
dOBj TIL that a town in North Carolina banned solar energy because they thought it would “suck up all the energy from the sun”
Brk4W TIL Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is sung in Japan at the end of every year, and the first time it was sung in the country was in a POW camp in 1918 by German prisoners