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TIL of Archibald McArthur, a successful Wisconsin lawyer who took a vow of poverty, later moved to Florida at age 79, and left his family members each $5, while leaving his remaining fortune of $3 million in today’s money to a stranger he met on a park bench.

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7r5lx TIL the lips and anus are made of the same kind of skin. They start out connected and separate during the course of a fetus’ development,
xVALg TIL In the 11th century, The first recorded attempt of human flight was by Eilmer of Malmesbury, who attached wings to his arms and legs and was said to have been blown 200m in the wind, before crashing. He put his failure down to not attaching a tail.
P8WL TIL that Martin Scorsese recreated 19th-century New York on the lot of Cinecitta studios in Rome. When George Lucas visited the massive set, he reportedly turned to Martin Scorsese and said “Sets like that can be done with computers now.”
Y70kx TIL U.S. railroads adopted the Standard Time System on the "Day of Two Noons." On Nov. 18, 1883, the Univ. of Pittsburgh's observatory telegraphed railroads at the exact moment of high noon under the 90th meridian line to reset/synchronize their clocks, dissolving the 100+ timezones previously used.
JY48Q TIL that Boris Pasternak (the author or Doctor Zhivago) was almost killed in the great purge, 20 years before he wrote his famous novel. He was only saved at the last moment when Stalin himself crossed his name off the list with the note "leave that fool alone".