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TIL Mark Twain based the character Huckleberry Finn on a real person named Tom Blankenship. Tom was four years older than Twain, and they knew each other growing up in Hannibal, Missouri.

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kOQZ7 TIL that during WW2 the British entertained the idea of building an aircraft carrier out of ice and wood pulp in order to fight German U-boats. They scrapped the idea after realizing they could just make airplanes fly farther instead. One admiral was accidentally shot during the development process.
oBvXW TIL Boris Yeltsin abandoned communism partly due to a visit to a Randall's Grocery store in Clear Lake, TX
wxY TIL in 1916, an elephant named Mary was hanged in TN for the murder of her trainer.
a8OEL TIL that in 1997 Pope John Paul II had named St. Isidore of Seville as the patron saint of the Internet, as the seventh-century theologian and encyclopedist who wrote the sole encyclopedia for nearly a millenium around 650 AD.
6a0J TIL Frank Zappa performed at a Casino in Switzerland when a flare set off by an audience member started a fire that burned down the casino.The event is immortalized in Deep Purple’s song “Smoke on the Water”