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TIL The backstory of Casper the Friendly Ghost is that he was a young adolescent who went sledding all day and died of pneumonia.

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xxvb TIL that an unconfirmed nuclear blast in the Indian Ocean, called the Vela Incident, was detected in 1979 and never definitively explained
QJp7L TIL Pakistan's biggest company is its Army - which sells everything from cereal boxes to marriage venues
4XA6N TIL The title of "World's Greatest Athlete" has been given to the person who wins the decathlon. This began when King Gustav V of Sweden told Jim Thorpe, "You, sir, are the world's greatest athlete" after Thorpe won the decathlon at the Stockholm Olympics in 1912.
NbLQ TIL that on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Russia, a German soldier deserted to the Soviets and told them they were going to be invaded the next day. His fate? Execution by Stalin for spreading misinformation.
M08m TIL the largest Embassy in the world is the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. It cost $750 million to build, employs 16,000 people and costs $6 billion a year to run.