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TIL about Percivall Pott and his discovery of the connection between scrotal cancer and chimney sweeps caused by exposure to soot

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via reddit.com

Brk0K TIL that Christopher Nolan was so secretive about Interstellar that he initially asked Hans Zimmer to compose the score with just a one-page story about a father who leaves his child to do an important job instead of giving him the script. It contained two lines of dialogue: "I'll come back & when?"
KOnMG TIL in 1997 a division by zero on the USS Yorktown's database system brought down all the machines on the ship's network, causing the propulsion system to fail.
n0wY TIL on April Fools Day 1976, English astronomer Patrick Moore stated to radio listeners that due to “a conjunction of Jupiter and Pluto” gravity would noticeably decrease on Earth. Shortly after, the BBC received hundreds of calls from people reporting they had felt the decrease in gravity.
Br1ML TIL Lawrence McKinney got $75 after being wrongly imprisoned for 31 years. The Tennessee Board of Parole denied McKinney’s request to exonerate him by a 7-0 vote at a hearing. A formal exoneration could open a pathway to $1 million in compensation.
X0KMD TIL As a reward for the victory at Blenheim, the Crown gave the Duke of Marlborough the Woodstock estate on condition that a replica of a captured French standard be presented annually to the British monarch — that ceremonial “peppercorn” tradition has been observed for 300+ years.