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TIL The poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” is largely responsible for some of the conceptions of Santa Claus from the mid-nineteenth century to today, and has had a massive impact on the history of Christmas gift giving

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PYk9O TIL that traditional Bavarian pretzels are made with lye (sodium hydroxide), the same caustic chemical used to clear drains and dissolve bodies.
j6GPE TIL humans cannot actually feel wetness; we only perceive it through temperature and pressure.
947M TIL The animatronic spider used in Arachnophobia was created by none other than Mythbuster’s Jamie Hyneman. It was one of his earliest special effects jobs.
b9Z5p TIL Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling's final project was Fantasy Park, a 1975 radio concert. It was a 48-hour long rock concert edited together from dozens of separate live acts, including The Beatles. Presented as an actual concert, stations reportedly received calls asking how to get to the show.
6RG7 TIL that in the 1870s, a woman named Nellie Cashman organized and led a party of six to take 1500 lbs of supplies to 26 miners stranded in the B.C. mountains by a snowstorm, after the Canadian Army refused to act because it was too dangerous.