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TIL that Tom Cruise's character in "The Last Samurai" was based on a real Frenchman who fought alongside the warriors of a doomed "samurai democracy" in 1869

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l7Rr1 TIL about the Earth Inductor Compass. Patented in 1912, obsolete by the mid-1930s, it is a type of compass that uses the principle of electromagnetic induction with the Earth's magnetic field. One was used by Charles Lindbergh in his solo flight NYC to Paris in 1927.
N7gjP TIL that there is a true heavy metal band, weighing about 1 1/2 tons, consisting of only robots. The guitar player has 78 fingers
lZ75 TIL that if not for food coloring, Cheetos would be gray.
Zpj1Q TIL that in 1913, Hitler, Stalin, Freud, and Trotsky all lived within walking distance of each other in Vienna.
QaYL TIL the “vampire squirrel” of Borneo has the fluffiest tail of any mammal on Earth - its tail is 130% the size of its own body