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TIL Thomas Edison worked on a Spirit Phone which would allow humans to connect with the dead

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v7D4 TIL of Jack Lucas. He joined the Marines at 13 to fight in WW2, survived a blast after jumping on two grenades to save his team, and later survived a free fall from an airplane after both of his parachutes failed.
xm7o TIL the standard diameter of a CD is 12cm because it must hold all of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
4kN76 TIL that the novels of Brett Ellis, author of American Psycho, occupy a shared universe. Patrick Bateman first appears in 'Rules of Attraction', then in 'Glamorama' (in which he is noted as having "strange stains" on the lapel of his Armani suit) and even appears alongside Ellis in 'Lunar Park'.
v1bOB TIL the first black baseball player wasn't Jackie Robinson, but rather Moses Fleetwood Walker, who played in the 1880s despite rampant racism. He was also an inventor, newspaper editor, hotel owner, opera house manager, postal worker, and a published author on race theory.
Z6kG TIL the US Navy built a replica ship in the middle of New York City during World War One to boost recruitment. It was staffed by a full crew who stood guard, slept on board and manned wooden guns. It helped enlist 25,000 men.