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TIL that a "loose cannon" is an apt name for something out of control: when an 8000 pound cannon came loose from a mooring on a ship, it could wreak terror on the crew as it wiped out anything or person in its path and destroyed the ship's walls

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9Yyw6 TIL of "A Counterblaste to Tobacco", an anti-smoking treatise written by King James VI in 1604. In it, he warns of the dangers of passive smoking as well as the damage to the lungs and brain
N71WE TIL Documentary Filmmaker Brian Fogle accidentally discovered the Russian State Sponsored Doping program while making a movie about how to beat doping tests. The movie is credited with helping start the investigation that ended up blocking Russia from competing at the Olympics since 2017
vDRL TIL there is a language called Boontling spoken only in the small Northern California town of Boonville. It is a mixture of English, Scottish, Irish, Pomo Indian and Spanish.
d8LL7 TIL Lego Mindstorms was named after Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas, a book arguing the benefits of teaching computer literacy in primary and secondary education written by Seymour Papert, an AI pioneer and the co-creator of Turtle graphics and the LOGO programming language
KOaN6 TIL Paul McCartney recorded the song Wonderful Christmastime entirely on his own during the sessions for his second solo album. In 2010 it was estimated that the song earns $400,000 a year, putting the overall earnings at $15 million.