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TIL in 1979 basketball legend Magic Johnson turned down an endorsement deal with Nike offering him 100,000 shares of stock and $1 for every pair of shoes sold in favor of a deal with Converse that paid him $100,000 annually. In declining the Nike deal Johnson missed out on over $5 billion.

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8alaZ TIL Forced Rhubarb, grown by candlelight in otherwise pitch-black sheds, grows so quickly you can actually hear it make sound - popping, cracking and snapping (audio in comments).
ep6YD TIL that four days after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, another fire burned through New York's State Capitol, which destroyed vast holdings of the State Library and Museum and killed a watchman. The two fires have been described as a "one-two punch" that led to fire safety reform in New York.
LQoEQ TIL that in the year 2000, Norm MacDonald nearly won a million dollars for Paul Newman’s charity for children, but host Regis Philbin talked him out of answering the question so he only won $500,000
yr7X TIL atheism is punished with the death penalty in 13 countries: Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
jNRYM TIL the beard of Tutankhamun’s golden mask fell off during a cleaning process in the Egyptian Museum in 2014. The workers used epoxy glue to reattach the beard, but since it wasn’t the professional method and permanent damage had been done, they were prosecuted in 2016