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TIL the director of the Guinness Breweries, became in 1951 involved in an argument about the fastest bird in Europe. The realisation there is no book for world records made him create “The Guinness Book of Records” that itself holds the world record as the best-selling copyrighted book of all time.

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b6DN7 TIL: The Big Dig, Boston's megaproject (1991–2007), rerouted I-93 into the O'Neill Tunnel, extended I-90 via the Ted Williams Tunnel, and added the Zakim Bridge and Rose Kennedy Greenway, transforming the city's infrastructure.
9YNkG TIL Tom Hanks agreed to play Mario in the the ‘now infamous’ live action movie “Super Mario Bros”. However, studio executives turned him down because they were worried he couldn’t handle the film’s more dramatic elements. (Clip starts at 4:26)
pD8e TIL that according to legend, everyone in America used to think tomatoes were poisonous, due to them being a member of the nightshade family. In 1820, New Jersey resident Robert Gibbon Johnson ate tomatoes in front of a large crowd to prove they were edible.
5YlYr TIL: The gravestones of John Parr (The first British soldier to die in WW1) and George Edwin Ellison (The last British soldier to die in WW1) both face each other in the same graveyard
Z8B94 TIL that mosquitoes' mouths have six parts, two parts to hold the skin in place while two other parts poke into the skin to look for blood vessels, a pump to suck up the blood, and a pump to deposit saliva with an anti-coagulant