TIL that in China you can pay money to go to a fake office and pretend to have a job [Source]

TIL that the city of Yubari, Hokkaido in Japan has experienced a 95% population decline since the 1960s. Once a thriving coal mining town that saw 120,000 people, its current population is near 5,500. [Source]

TIL that, both geologically and ecologically, Lake Baikal is more like a tiny ocean than a huge lake. It's situated on a continental rift, contains both hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, and has lifeforms including sponges, a species of seal and fish with traits usually seen only in the deep ocean. [Source]

TIL Insurance was invented by Marcus Licinius Crassus. As the richest man in Rome, he formed a private 500-man fire brigade. When an uninsured building caught fire, his men would negotiate a rock-bottom sale price with the panicked owner before putting the flames out. [Source]

TIL in 1782 King Taksin of Thailand was deposed in a coup. His friend, a general fighting in Myanmar, returned to Bangkok and put down the coup. However, he then executed Taksin and crowned himself, starting the current Thai dynasty. [Source]

TIL towards the end of filming "Tenet," Robert Pattinson gifted Christopher Nolan a book of Oppenheimer speeches. According to Nolan, the speeches showed Oppenheimer "wrestling with the implications of what's happened and what he's done." This led to Nolan's decision to make "Oppenheimer" (2023). [Source]

TIL According to Aristotle, sale of land was prohibited in Sparta, but giving land away as a dowry or bequeathing land as inheritance, was not. Because this practice heavily favored women, in his time about two fifths of all land in Sparta was owned by women [Source]

TIL that the color of Spain's third stripe flag has controversy. The Republicans (anti-monarchist) had purple as the 3rd stripe to represent Castille. The Nationalists used red in the bottom stripe. The current flag uses red. Many trade unions and left-wing groups waive the purple striped flag. [Source]

TIL Leonor, Princess of Asturias, who was born in 2005, has been preparing to become Spain's first Queen regnant in over 150 years since she became the first in line to the throne at the age of 8 & was given the title Princess of Asturias. The last Queen regnant was Isabella II (reign: 1833-1868). [Source]

TIL Athletic Bilbao is the 4th most successful team in Spanish football history, has won 24 league cups, and has never been relegated. This is despite the fact that they only recruit and play players of Basque origin, a diaspora of roughly 3 million people, less than the population of Iowa. [Source]

TIL that 50% of West Germany's massive post-World War II and interwar foreign debts were canceled by creditors via the London Agreement on German External Debts. The agreement allowed the German government to invest heavily in rebuilding, which helped create "the economic miracle". [Source]

TIL In 2005 Argentinean soccer star Maradona confessed that his team spiked with tranquilizers the water of the Brazil team during the 1990 world cup. [Source]

TIL about Fatal Familial Insomnia, a rare and incurable genetic brain disorder that permanently destroys a person's ability to sleep. Patients remain completely awake for months, suffering from progressive hallucinations, panic attacks, and dementia, until they inevitably die from exhaustion. [Source]

TIL that Raymond Moody coined the term "near-death experience" in 1975 after interviewing 150 people who had been clinically dead and revived, and found they all described the same structural experience independently with no prior knowledge of each other [Source]

TIL that while filming Tenet, Robert Pattinson attempted to hide that he was auditioning for The Batman by claiming he had a family emergency whenever he had to do a screen test. Christopher Nolan immediately guessed what he was doing. [Source]

TIL the only mammals native to New Zealand are two species of bats and marine animals. It has no land based native mammals. [Source]

TIL the University of Oxford was already teaching students for more than 200 years before the Aztec Empire was founded. [Source]

TIL of Rudy Linares, who pull the plug on his son Samuel to end his suffering, and cradled him as he died while holding hospital staff at gunpoint, after they stopped him due to fears of legal problems [Source]

TIL that a 1993 rap album called Bangin' on Wax was recorded entirely by actual, active rival Bloods and Crips and sold over 500,000 copies, with all proceeds from the initial sales going directly to local schools and community parks [Source]

TIL while the early English colonists in Roanoke Island, North Carolina were widely believed for centuries to have disappeared there were actually oral and written accounts of these settlers blending into nearby Native American communities that were later proven true by archeological evidence. [Source]

TIL in 2019, the Chinese space mission Chang'e-4 had cotton seeds sprout on the surface of the Moon [Source]