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TIL that when medieval Islamic scholar al-Biruni was trying to determine the exact position of qibla (the Muslim direction for prayer), he realized that a vast span of Earth’s land was unaccounted for in the modern maps of the time. This turned out to be the American continent.

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yQAeM TIL Marlon Wayans was cast as Robin in Batman Returns. Producers decided that, with The Penguin and Catwoman, the movie was too crowded and decided to cut out Robin. Despite not getting to actually play the role, Wayans was still paid $100,000 and receives royalty checks up to this very day.
kJYO7 TIL Panasonic software developed a computer program 'Secret Writer's Society' to teach kids to write. Due to a bug in the code, double clicking 'Read' instead of reading back what you wrote, would instead read back the swear filter.
vPyQ8 TIL A residential developer planned to create a community of mini-castles in Mudurnu, Turkey. Following economic turmoil, the community now sits as an abandoned town with hundreds of identical, half-finished mini-castles.
e0xM4 TIL of May Bradford, a Red Cross volunteer during WWI who wrote over 25,000 letters and notes, an average of 12 a day, for wounded soldiers who were too ill or too uneducated to write to their family. She also sat with the injured and dying and considered herself to be a surrogate mother to them.
aNxJ TIL Washington Square Park in NYC was once a potters field cemetery and where the fountain is today was the location the gallows where the cities guilty were hanged. There are still approximately 20,000 bodies still buried there.