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TIL the tubular cavity of a chimney is called a flue and was JK Rowling's inspiration for naming Floo Power (despite her not knowing exactly what it referred to)

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8aa6L TIL Thomas Edison didn’t invent the lightbulb. He merely improved Joseph Swan’s design which had been patented 10 years before Edison. Swan sued Edison for patent infringement and won.
4krl5 TIL that there are four unratified amendments to the Constitution that are still technically "pending" approval by the states. Dating back to 1789, they deal with subjects like banning child labor, stripping citizenship from anyone who accepts a title of nobility, and permanently legalizing slavery.
Ypdwx TIL The average number of stars we can see with the naked eye is around 10000. This number is only the 0.000004% of all stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
x6odw TIL that then-dictator of Panama Manuel Noriega had a pen-pal, a 10-year-old American girl named Sarah York, who first wrote to him because she liked his hat and ended up visiting the country with her family twice.
wooKo TIL that the first piece of legislation passed by the 1st U.S. Congress was the Tariff of 1789, which levied a 50¢ per ton duty on goods imported by foreign ships. President Washington signed the act and the money was used to pay off the Revolutionary War debt.