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TIL that a cigarette lit in frustration by a Swiss physicist led to the accidental invention of modern smoke detectors.

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J1RPl TIL When Bobby Womack was 25, he had sex with his 17 year old stepdaughter. She then married her step-Uncle. For this ordeal, Bobby Womack was shot by his wife, who later divorced him. His stepdaughter never spoke to her mother again.
78mlX TIL that Osgood Perkins's mother, Berry Berenson, was the sister of Marisa Berenson and granddaughter of Elsa Schiaparelli. She died in the September 11 attacks.
kONn1 TIL almost every time the General Lee jumped in the Dukes of Hazzard, the car was totaled. About 300 General Lees died while filming, generally two per episode.
YMgr TIL the entire coastline of California is a National Monument, promising permanent conservation and ensuring there will not be new oil drilling within 12 nautical miles of the mainland.
d8gbZ TIL Iwao Takamoto, the Japanese-American animator and designer behind cartoons such as Scooby-Doo, Penelope Pitstop and several Disney characters, learned his skills as a teenage prisoner in the Manzanar internment camp, which held over 110,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.