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TIL that historian George Smith, upon discovering an ancient Mesopotamian parallel to the Biblical Flood story, was so overcome with excitement that he began running around the room and removing his clothes, to the astonishment of those present.

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RMOj TIL that Benjamin Franklin had an illegitimate son, who had an illegitimate son, who had an illegitimate son.
WkpAX TIL that in 1966 a computer scientist wrote a program, called ELIZA, intended to demonstrate the superficiality of communication between people and machines. Instead it came to be seen as a therapy program and fooled a remarkable number of people into believing that the computer had feelings.
jNXZa TIL if you hold left mouse button on left side of the screen while in full-screen mode on youtube, you can drag out a sidebar with your playlists, subscriptions and other stuff
NXEoJ TIL that in 1998, Sony had the chance to buy the rights to nearly all Marvel characters for $25 million but chose to acquire only Spider-Man, believing no one cared about the others.
4kdeX TIL that Calcio Fiorentino, an early form of football from Italy that is still played today, starts with the teams engaging in mixed martial arts to force opponents into submission before trying to score a goal.