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TIL Koreans believe Japan standardised the spelling on 'Korea' (as opposed to 'Corea') so that 'Japan' would appear first alphabetically.

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OPL TIL Mark Twain came into and then left this world on successive Halley’s Comet appearances, and predicted that day as the date of his death.
ADdQx TIL about Jára "The Master" Cimrman, a noted playwright, educator, inventor, and philosopher. Cimrman was voted "The Greatest Czech" in a national contest until he was disqualified for being fictional. Created on a radio show in 1966 to criticize the Communist government, he's become a folk hero.
Ag4B TIL: There is no direct source for the Steinbeck quote: “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires”.
78nLp TIL Gut bacterias talk to our brain and influence our mood, energy level, appetite, memory and personality.
9Y8PG TIL of the Radium Girls, young women who worked by painting clock dials using glow in the dark radium paints. Because they sucked the brush to make them pointier, they were exposed to massive amounts of radiation, some suffering debilitating diseases that eventually killed them.