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TIL a film director who faced a two-year prison sentence for animal cruelty in his movie was exonerated after props made by special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi were exhibited in the courtroom. Rambaldi went on to win three Oscars for his work in King Kong, Alien and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

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0wwZR TIL before the electric telegraph, there was a system called the semaphore telegraph, where signals were communicated visually using a network of towers topped with pivoting blades and paddles that could be rearranged to indicate different symbols
VD78 TIL that Teddy Roosevelt was once shot while delivering a speech and instead of going the hospital he spoke for 90 minutes telling the crowd “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”
P17EO TIL that a women's suffrage activist named Virginia Minor sued in court in the 1870s to secure women the right to vote, based on the 14th Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause. In 1875, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled against her in the Minor v. Happersett case.
R7bPa TIL the phenomenon where you see faces in things (i.e. "The Man On The Moon" or cars) is called Pareidolia
rEAx TIL residents of Pompeii almost all died instantly from extreme heat rather than from suffocation fire to ash/toxic gases