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TIL: Terry Fox, a 21 year old one-legged cancer patient, ran 3,339miles across Canada in 143 days before dying. He ran the equivalent of a full marathon every day and was the youngest person ever named a Companion of the Order of Canada.

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b6MpQ TIL In his Inaugural address, President James Buchanan declared that the turmoil surrounding slavery was “happily, a matter of but little practical importance”. By the end of his four-year term, seven states had seceded from the Union, and civil war was imminent.
8a7oZ TIL that Louis Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for most of his life, up until the day he died, to commemorate a Jewish family that had taken him in and cared for him as a child.
PykG TIL that during the 2003 Station Nightclub fire, a reporter filmed the entire fire from the moment before the pyrotechnics went off on the main stage. He was at the club doing a piece on nightclub safety.
b8M9 TIL there is a Penny Lobby in the United States to keep the one cent coin in circulation even though it is produced at a loss. The lobby was hired by Jardin Zinc Products, who is the sole provider of penny blanks to the U.S. Government.
OGY8e TIL Frankenstein is not the name of The Monster; Dr. Frankenstein's assistant (1931) is named Fritz; and neither Fritz nor Igor appears in the 1818 book by Mary Shelley.