Today I Learned (TIL)

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/TriviaDuchess on 2025-03-14 20:05:30+00:00.

Original Title: TIL Isaac Newton was Master of the Mint in England for the last 30 years of his life. Although it was intended as an honorary title, he took it seriously—working to standardize coinage and crack down on counterfeits. He personally testified against some counterfeiters, leading to their hanging.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Away-Lynx8702 on 2025-03-14 19:47:18+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Salt-Tutor6374 on 2025-03-14 19:03:39+00:00.

Original Title: TIL the first snowboarders in the 1960s were often kicked off ski resorts for being “too unruly” and “dangerous to skiing culture.” It wasn’t until the late 1980s that most resorts fully accepted snowboarding.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/UndyingCorn on 2025-03-14 18:56:00+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/SteO153 on 2025-03-14 08:35:14+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Positive_Owl_2024 on 2025-03-14 17:19:09+00:00.

Original Title: TIL: Sumerian and Babylonian math used a base 60 system. 60 was the most important number in Mesopotamian math. It is such a useful number system that today, we still measure time, angles, and coordinates using the Base 60 system created by the ancient Mesopotamians!

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ExpertMarxman1848 on 2025-03-14 16:41:49+00:00.

Original Title: TIL the early Republican party had a paramilitary organization called "Wide Awakes" who marched for the election of Abe Lincoln, protect Republican party meetings, and equal rights between blacks and whites.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/BadenBaden1981 on 2025-03-14 16:33:54+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/vandom on 2025-03-14 15:09:01+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Umikaloo on 2025-03-14 14:44:05+00:00.

Original Title: TIL in 1985, the Canadian government banned the use of the name "Beef patty" by Jamaican patty vendors. The legal definition of "patty" at the time only described hamburger patties. After community outrage and mobilisation, vendors were allowed to call their products "Jamaican patties".

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/LageNomAiNomAi on 2025-03-14 10:59:56+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ICanStopTheRain on 2025-03-14 12:57:06+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that in 1963, the Japanese song "Ue o Muite Arukō" became the first song in a non-European language to top the US charts. The song, inspired by the US military’s presence in Japan, is about whistling to stop yourself from crying.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/yooolka on 2025-03-14 12:45:06+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that in 1849, Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to death for his alleged anti-government activities with a radical intellectual group. He had already been marched out to the firing squad and was standing before the executioners when the order came through to spare him.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/highaskite25 on 2025-03-14 10:09:35+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/fotogneric on 2025-03-14 10:24:59+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Confident_Remote_521 on 2025-03-14 06:37:08+00:00.

Original Title: TIL Emperor Yao Chang of 4th century China had killed the emperor he had formerly served. Later he felt the late emperor's spirit was aiding his avenging army, and made a shrine for the emperor he himself killed, asking for bygones be bygones and to protect him from his avenging troops.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/CityRulesFootball on 2025-03-14 07:42:05+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that Fields condition is the rarest medical condition in the world with only three cases ever identified which causes painful muscle spasms ,makes them unable to speak without electronic aids and makes them immobile.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Bannable_Lecter on 2025-03-14 04:03:56+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Enough-Edge-8536 on 2025-03-14 03:53:04+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/CowardiceNSandwiches on 2025-03-14 02:56:22+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ICanStopTheRain on 2025-03-14 00:59:31+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that the record for most lunar orbits is shared by Apollo 17 astronaut Ronald Evans and five mice brought on the mission. The mice, named Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey, were euthanized and dissected upon their return.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Bluest_waters on 2025-03-14 01:51:39+00:00.

Original Title: TIL The Smoot–Hawley Act of '30 was an attempt to protect the US from foreign competition by imposing high tariffs. The consensus view among economists and historians is that the passage of the Act had, in fact, achieved an opposite effect to what was intended. It exacerbated the Great Depression

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Kdean509 on 2025-03-14 01:11:45+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/1900grs on 2025-03-14 01:04:37+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/tyrion2024 on 2025-03-11 02:20:22+00:00.

Original Title: TIL a 2023 study examined the cognitive ability scores of nearly 400,000 Americans between 2006-2018 and found that over that 13-year period, Americans' IQ scores had dropped in three out of the four cognitive domains included in the analysis.