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TIL "Willie McBride," the fallen soldier eulogized in the folk song "No Man's Land (Green Fields of France)," is both fictional and real. The writer invented his name, but several young men named "William McBride" did die in World War I and match some or all of the song's description.

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via reddit.com

d8JD8 TIL there really is a place called Sweet Home in Alabama.
5omD TIL A man who would later become the president of Mormon church once declared, “We will never get a man into space. […] The moon is a superior planet to the earth and it was never intended that man should go there. You can write it down in your books that this will never happen”… in 1961.
oBWJ8 TIL that Hitler only had four teeth when he died.
X4gE TIL that phrases that use two synonyms to say the same thing (e.g. “will and testament”) are called “legal doublets,” and they exist because during Medieval times, English speakers spoke both French and Latin, but not typically both, and lawyers wanted to avoid ambiguity.
VMLa4 TIL, that before he got into writing massive-selling thrillers, James Patterson worked for advertising firm J. Walter Thompson, where he is credited with coming up with the jingle “I’m a Toys R Us Kid.”