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TIL the longest-running experiment is the pitch drop experiment. A funnel holding a sample of tar pitch sealed in a glass jar shows how some substances that appear solid are actually liquid. It takes 10 years for a single drop to form. The best known version of the experiment was started in 1927.

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BrKoW TIL about an associate professor of law at Southwestern Law School, named Caleb Mason who teaches individuals about 4th Amendment Rights. He in 2012 wrote a law commentary piece to Jay-Z's song "99 Problems" to inform individuals about how to handle searches and seizures in a lawful manner.
7rdbX TIL of the time footballer (later manager) Mark Hughes played in two matches, in two separate countries, on the same day. In November 1987, he played for Wales against Czechoslovakia in Prague. After the game he was quickly flown to Germany where he came on as a substitute for Bayern Munich.
6LBw TIL: In 2000 a man tested the parachute as designed by Da Vinci. Despite never being tested before, it turned out to have a “smoother ride” than modern day parachutes.
1aER8 TIL Shishi-odoshi, used in japanese gardens as part of the visual and aural design, were originally designed to scare away animals such as deer or boars from grazing on the plants nearby.
kOpXm TIL that the Lumière brothers, the inventors of motion picture, once said that "the cinema is an invention without any future" and gave up on the technology to go back to focusing on photography, so their involvement in the early history of film was quite brief