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TIL Christmas only became a thing in Scotland in 1958, and had been BANNED for centuries following the Reformation - with strict penalties for celebrating. Instead Scots celebrated the secular Hogmanay, which remains a significant date on the nation's calendar every year.

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via reddit.com

7r0bL TIL of Larry "Lawnchair Larry" Walters, who, in 1982, attached helium balloons to his lawnchair and flew at an altitude of 16,000 feet, and used a pellet gun to pop balloons before dropping the gun, then continued to land on power lines. He was later charged $1,500 for not communicating with an ATC
KOKlQ TIL about Carbon Chauvinism, a term coined by Carl Sagan which assumes that all extraterrestrial life must be made of carbon because carbon-based humans are unable to imagine life made of radically different biochemistries.
4Xoeg TIL of Joseph Tartaro who applied for a vanity license plate with the California DMV that said "NULL" as a joke. Because of how computers interpret that word it wreaked havoc in the system and he began to receive dozens of citations in bulk from all over the state.
xVPBD TIL that following a plagiarism trial against Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, the judge handed down his ruling with his own code embedded within. It was later discovered by a writer for The Guardian & dubbed "The Smithy Code".
8e6kZ TIL that if you drive at 45 mph on a specific stretch of Route 66 in New Mexico, the road's rumble strips will play 'America the Beautiful.'