🎓 TIL - Today I Learned but no 🐝

TIL In Japan, Christmas Eve is celebrated as a date night for couples, with many couples booking dates at fancy restaurants and hotel stays, similar to Valentine's Day. [source, comments]

TIL that as of 2019 any firearm licence applicant in the Firozpur district of Punjab, India must plant at least 10 trees and take photos with them as part of the application process. [source, comments]

TIL about the Eschede train disaster, a major railway accident that caused 101 deaths and 88 severe injuries. Deutsche Bahn paid 30,000 Deutsche Marks (about US$19,000) for each fatality to the applicable families. Two Deutsche Bahn officials and one engineer were charged with manslaughter. [source, comments]

TIL that glass for televisions is made by pouring liquid glass into a trough until it overflows both sides, and catching the sheet that forms in mid-air [source, comments]

TIL that Winston Churchill won the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature [source, comments]

TIL that in 2012, a group of juvenile gorillas were seen successfully disarming poachers' traps and snares, as well as warning nearby humans away from it. [source, comments]

TIL that in 2012, trading firm Knight Capital lost over $460 million in just 45 minutes after a software deployment error caused its computers to execute millions of unintended stock trades. Its systems had generated 97 warning emails before the market even opened. [source, comments]

TIL that as late as the 1980s, some newborn babies underwent major surgery with little or no pain relief because doctors believed infants might not perceive pain. Some were given muscle relaxants that prevented movement without providing pain relief. [source, comments]

TIL: the Honda Super Cub is the most produced (and by inference, most sold) motorcycle of all time, starting production in 1958 and surpassing 100 million units by 2017 [source, comments]

TIL Leopold II of Belgium had an illegitimate son born with a deformed hand. This led to a cartoon depicting Leopold holding the child, surrounded by the corpses of Congolese who had their hands cut off, with a caption reading "Vengeance from on high". [source, comments]

TIL Woodstock from "The Peanuts" was unnamed until June 22, 1970. He is named after the Woodstock festival. [source, comments]

TIL during the siege of Leningrad, while hundreds of thousands died of starvation, the first seed bank (containing rice, flour, nuts, fruits, vegetables, and 200,000 seeds and plants) was right below the city. The scientists guarding it ate none of it; nine dying of starvation. [source, comments]

TIL The United States Tomb of the Unknown Soldier has been continuously guarded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without interruption since July 2, 1937. [source, comments]

TIL The Smithsonian's smallest museum in Washington DC draws 33,700 visitors compared to 6.2 million at the National Air and Space Museum. Anacostia Community Museum was redesigned for its local scale to be a place to hang out, with outdoor patio and internet lounge [source, comments]

TIL - During an episode of Pokemon aired in Japan on December 16, 1997, multiple scenes with flashing lights induced photosensitive epileptic seizures in children across the country. Over 600 people were taken to hospital. [source, comments]

TIL about the "Apple–FBI encryption dispute" is a series of legal disputes between Apple and the FBI regarding the levels of encryption Apple places on its products, and the extent to which Apple can be forced to break this encryption on the devices of individuals accused of criminal actions. [source, comments]

TIL Hitler sent his official photographer to secretly photograph Stalin earlobes to determine his ancestry [source, comments]

TIL that male emperor penguins incubate the egg and are the ones who lactate by producing a substance called crop milk from their crop to feed their chick if the mother does not return with food before it hatches. [source, comments]

TIL that video game Jill of the Jungle (1992) by Epic Megagames was the last video game that company's founder Tim Sweeney who still is Epic's CEO ever designed. [source, comments]

TIL that Marshall University turns off their memorial fountain on Nov 14th every year until spring. This is to honor their 1970 football team that was killed in a plane crash returning from a game [source, comments]