TIL As a teenager, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping went to Europe on a work-study program designed by anarchists who hoped a Western education would create a cohort capable of reviving China
https://jacobin.com/2019/01/deng-xiaoping-china-mao-communist-party
TIL that the largest known prime number discovered as of June 2023 is 282,589,933 − 1, a number which contains 24,862,048 digits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_known_prime_number
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/152ekm1/til_that_the_largest_known_prime_number/
TIL in 2022, Turkey officially changed its name to Türkiye
TIL that De Beers controlled 80% to 85% of rough diamond distribution from 1888 until the start of the 21st century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Beers
TIL there is an academic journal dedicated to the study of The Beatles. The Journal of Beatles Studies is published by Liverpool University Press.
TIL The original Angry Birds game was removed from the playstore in February this year
https://nichegamer.com/angry-birds-is-being-removed-popular/
TIL That there's a name for when you've just learned something, only to have it come up later out of the blue, or what some call serendipity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader-Meinhof_phenomenon
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/152djz3/til_that_theres_a_name_for_when_youve_just/
TIL besides tigons and ligers (largest big cat) - liligers, litigons, tiligers, and titigons also exist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera_hybrid#Lion_and_tiger_hybrids
TIL About How 2 Colonels and a National Geographic Map Divided Korea
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/152d216/til_about_how_2_colonels_and_a_national/
TIL that eating spicy foods in hot weather will cool you down more than cold ice cream because spicy foods make you sweat which will cool you off more quickly and efficiently.
https://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-spicy-recipes-hot-weather-20150817-story.html
TIL about the "Silver Snoopy Award" which is an award presented personally by a NASA astronaut to a NASA employee or contractor, is an actual depiction of Snoopy from Peanuts as an astronaut, and the pins are certified to have flown in space.
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/sfa/aac/silver-snoopy-award
TIL after Robert e Lee defeated the union at the battle of camp hill the British and french intervened in the civil war
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Hill,_Pennsylvania
TIL that rock singer Marc Bolan refused to learn how to drive, fearing that he would die young in a car crash. In 1977, Bolan died at age 29 in a car crash, when a car, driven by his girlfriend Gloria Jones, hit a tree.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Bolan
TIL When Chandler Bing on Friends is watching Baywatch and telling Yasmine Bleeth to "run" it's actually an inside joke - Matthew Perry was dating Bleeth at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baywatch
TIL Mad Cow Disease is caused by cattle consuming the remains of other cattle as part of their diet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy?wprov=sfla1
TIL every winter, thousands of midwesterners ski on the hill where Stevie Ray Vaughn died
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie_Ray_Vaughan#Death
TIL that Embalming wasn't commonly used in US funerals until the US Civil War, when morticians followed after both armies selling their services for embalming and shipping, and several prominent Civil War figures were embalmed and displayed, including Abraham Lincoln.
TIL in Elizabethan England, the word "nothing" was also a slang term for female genitalia. Now, the title of Shakespeare's play "Much Ado About Nothing" is perceived as very ambiguous.
TIL while Christopher Reeve was feeling anguished shortly after his accident which left him paralyzed and uncertain about his future, Robin Williams entered his hospital room one night and reenacted his character from Nine Months, making him laugh for the first time since his accident.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Reeve#Hospitalization
