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TIL that for the Merovingian dynasty (457-751 AD), the power of a king was based on the length of his hair. If a rival shaved the head of a king, then his power would be lost. The man with the longest hair in the kingdom would subsequently inherit the throne.

nerOb TIL Just before the SEGA Dreamcast was released, Sony announced the PlayStation 2 and exaggerated its performance capabilities in order to undercut the Dreamcast’s sales.
p4NA TIL that a study showed US Southerners aren’t actually the fattest Americans; when previous US weight surveys were scrutinized, which used self-reported over-the-phone data collection, it found the South had the smallest discrepancy between reported & actual weight. In other words, they lied less.
7ryD7 TIL Marlon Brando refused to memorise his lines in 'Last Tango in Paris'. Cue cards were posted around & out of the frame. His eyes lifting upward in one act was not spontaneous dramatic acting but a search for his next cue card. And once asked if he could "write lines on Maria Schneider's rear end"
YQaP TIL the Canadian $100 banknote featured an Asian woman on the back using a microscope. People complained that it was stereotyping Asians as being good at technology. She was replaced with a Caucasian woman, and then more people complained that Caucasians were being favoured.
nWXBb TIL a nuclear accident at SL-1 created a burst of steam so powerful that a piston-like effect threw the whole 26 000 pound nuclear reactor vessel over nine feet upward. The cause of the incident isn't known because the workers didn't explain why they removed a necessary rod prior to the explosion.