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TIL The magic of Star Wars was largely thanks to one man, Roger Christian, who spent countless hours without getting paid, constructing the worlds on screen from piles of scrapped airplanes.

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JPQ8 TIL AT&T made a working answering machine in 1939 but suppressed it, thinking public fear of being recorded would lead to widespread abandonment of the telephone.
1a45X TIL when Spanish Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco was assasinated in 1973, the bomb was so powerful that it sent his car flying over the roof of a building and into the courtyard.
54vp TIL the Australian Night Parrot is the most elusive and mysterious bird in the world - only three people have had a confirmed sighting in over a century.
loDGK TIL that "salting the earth" was a way to totally screw a vanquished enemy by poisoning their land so nothing would grow there. Obvious question: how did they get that much salt?
oBp7Y TIL about the M-29 Davy Crockett a tactical nuclear recoilless gun