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TIL that the element Samarium was named after Russian mining engineer Vassili Samarsky-Bykhovets. It was the first element to be named after a person.

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eJLb TIL When Shirley Temple’s acting career fizzled out, she chose a second career in public service and became the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in 1969.
9YMjQ TIL that the actors that played Ethel and Fred hated one another so much, that Vivian Vance (Ethel) once stated: “I loathed William Frawley (Fred) and the feeling was mutual. Whenever I received a new script, I raced through it, praying that there wasn’t a scene where we had to be in bed together.”
p8ALO TIL: The International Space Station orbits about 220 miles above Earth. To put that in perspective, if Earth were the size of a basketball, the space station would be about 1/4 of an inch (<7mm) off the surface.
DEBg TIL Families of fallen American soldiers can choose among 60 religious symbols for their official tombstones, including a Wicca Pentagram and Thor’s Hammer.
16kpW TIL about Prototaxites: giant tree-like fungi that lived over 350 million years ago with heights reaching more than 20ft (6.5+m) tall.