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TIL that Daniel Day-Lewis was so convincing as a killer in "Gangs of New York," the mom of his 10 year old co-star for "There Will Be Blood" saw the movie, and didn't want her son acting alongside him anymore. The studio sent her "The Age of Innocence" to reassure her Day-Lewis wasn't actually bad.

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e0d1n TIL in 1744, two Scottish Presbyterian ministers made a plan to have fellow ministers pay a small amount a year into a fund, which would be used to take care of their widows if ministers died. It became the blueprint for modern insurance, and their fund, Scottish Widows, is now worth billions.
Bgvvb TIL the dilemma zone is the term for the area where you cannot safely stop for a yellow light nor reach the intersection before the light turns red.
7rpk7 TIL a Dutch student once 'faked' a gap year as part of a university project to show how social media is not reflective of real life. Using edited/staged pictures, she created an illusion on Facebook she was travelling around South East Asia for over a month. In reality, she never left her apartment.
M7Rna TIL that the first confession elicited from a suspect with the famous Reid Technique -- still used during police interrogations throughout the U.S. -- was later discovered to be completely false, and led to a $500K settlement for wrongful conviction.
wLywo TIL that France sent the one and only cat into space to gauge the effects of spaceflight on living creatures in the hopes that humans could follow