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TIL that the tongue twister “She sells seashells by the seashore” is based on the life of Mary Anning. Mary and her brother learned to find, identify and sell fossils in an effort to support their family after their father died.

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nLxB TIL that Erwin Schrödinger never thought a cat could be both alive and dead. The thought experiment was satire that criticized the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.
OnWL TIL that in 1967 a California teacher, in trying to teach his students how the German public supported the Nazi government during the 1930’s and 1940’s, created a faux-facist student movement to show them facism’s allure. In three days membership jumped from his class of 30 to over 200 students.
X0GBj TIL: In 1920, 70 years before the birth of the European Union, someone proposed the creation of the P.A.M. "The New Europe with Lasting Peace," which aimed to divide Europe "into slices" using a canton system and included a common flag, monetary system, time zone, postal service and language
9YKwr TIL that the character of Abed Nadir from Community is one of the few pop culture characters seen as a reasonably accurate representation of Autism, and is especially important because he rarely falls into the Pinocchio Syndrome (I just want to be a real boy!) trope so common in movies and tv.
6E9Jw TIL modern capital letters are characterized by straight lines and supple curves to make them easier to carve into stone. Lower case letters were only used for everyday writing and weren't originally used in conjunction with upper case.