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TIL in the 1980s, McDonald’s used the song “Mack the Knife” in commercials that featured their character "Mac Tonight". The song “Mack the Knife” is about a knife-wielding criminal from London’s underworld who dumped the body of his victim in a river.

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40yo TIL that 7th Century general Khalid bin al-Waleed swallowed poison to demonstrate how much of a hard-ass he was. Instantly shrugging it off because he’d built up resistance since childhood, his enemy immediately surrendered.
6Eyw8 TIL that debian (a linux based Operating System - Parent of Ubuntu) has its versions named after toy story characters since its initial release in 1996 (code named Buzz after Buzz Lightyear)
XdAP TIL That Europeans in the Middle Ages never actually thought the Earth was flat. The idea that they did is called the Myth of the Flat Earth.
nWr69 TIL Stanford engineers made a folding origami microscope that costs less than $1 to make. 50,000 microscopes were shipped to 130 countries in 2014 to see what people will do with it
ne9Er TIL there's a Buddhist majority republic in Europe called Kalmykia. It's part of Russia, many inhabitants are ethnically Mongolian and it's capital features several beautiful Buddhist temples.