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TIL Sergei Prokofiev died the same day as Stalin in 1953. Millions attended Stalin's funeral, but only 40 for Prokofiev's. A musical periodical noted his death on p. 116, with pages 1 to 115 devoted to Stalin. Flowers were so scarce in Moscow that Prokofiev's family used cuttings from house plants.

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4X76b TIL Helen Keller was a librarian at public and college libraries including Drexel Institute and Columbia University and authored The Reader's Digest of Books.
5YmVp TIL that humans are killing 100 million sharks every year (per 2018) and that the consumption of shark fin soup, primarily in China and Vietnam, is the biggest reason behind the massive figure, contributing directly to the killing of almost half of the sharks.
Wk0B8 TIL That in 1941, Rudolf Hess, the "Deputy Fuhrer" of Nazi Germany, seemingly without Hitler's knowledge, flew to Scotland in a deranged plan to meet a Scottish baron he knew, and through him meet with Churchill to persuade him to stop the war. He was found by a farmer and immediately imprisoned.
rNQNd TIL The infamous paperclip, Clippy, was an early animation project by ‘Deadpool’ director Tim Miller’s studio, Blur Studio.
rBDx TIL around 1054 AD, a bright star appeared in the sky that Chinese astronomers could see in broad daylight for 23 straight days. It was not until almost 900 years later that Dutch astronomer Jan Oort identified that starburst as a supernovae in its remnant form… the Crab Nebula.