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TIL that authors J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis made a pact to write books on two topics. Lewis would take “space travel,” Tolkien “time travel”. Lewis completed his “space travel” trilogy, but Tolkien never finished his “time travel” books. Instead, Tolkien wrote “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

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4rOJ TIL That Sean Bean gets fan mail intended for Rowan Atkinson who played ‘Mr. Bean’
GA1M5 TIL that 6 year old Seryozha Aleshkov was the youngest soldier of WW2. The war orphaned him and then a group of soldiers took him in as a brother. He then went on to find German spies hiding in a haystack and was awarded for his intelligence. He died in 1990, aged 54. More information below.
nGlB TIL that as part of their training, 18 month old circus elephants are chained together and made to stand still for 23 hours a day
xgVo TIL the human genome is comprised of 5% - 8% viral DNA, which can be traced back to 30 - 35 separate viral invasions in human history.
16kBP TIL that Peter I of Russia introduced a tax on beards in 1698, to encourage men to shave and look more like European standards at the time. There even was a police force in charge of verifying payment of this tax, which could even forcibly shave people in the street who didn't pay it.