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TIL a reporter for the Morning Bulletin in Australia once wrote an article about 30 000 pigs escaping from a farm. The paper had to issue a retraction the next day when it transpired the reporter had misheard the farmer. In fact, 30 sows and pigs had escaped.

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OoAng TIL Viagra (sildenafil, the compound) was originally developed for the treatment of high blood pressure and chest pain due to heart disease. During the clinical trials, researchers discovered that the drug actually way more effective at inducing erections. In 1999, Pfizer sold 1bn$ worth of Viagra.
pKDe TIL a man tried to redeem 7 million Pepsi Points for a Harrier Jet and sued when Pepsico claimed the commercial in which it was featured was ‘fanciful’.
kO89B TIL On April 30, 1961, Dr. Leonid Rogozov removed his own infected appendix at the Soviet Novolazarevskaja Research Station in Antarctica, as he was the only doctor there. The operation lasted one hour and 45 minutes and it was a success.
Bg4mr TIL shooting stars (meteors) can often times be as small as a grain of sand
V8yp TIL though alchemists never succeeded in transmuting lead to gold, in 1981 physicists used the particle accelerator at Berkeley to shoot Carbon nuclei at thin foils of Bismuth- the resulting collisions did produced a tiny amount of Gold atoms