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TIL Charles Darwin married his first cousin Emma Wedgwood, before having 10 children, three of which died before the age of 11. This lead him to wonder whether close genetic matches had an impact on health, adding to his theory of evolution and the passing of traits to offspring.

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QNLY9 TIL Timothy Dalton was offered the role of James Bond several times. The first was for Live And Let Die, which he turned down because he believed he was too young (24). He also turned down For Your Eyes Only, and he came very close to being passed over for The Living Daylights.
7roL7 TIL That J. R. R. Tolkien began work on The Hobbit one day early in the 1930s, when he was marking School papers. He found a blank page. Suddenly inspired, he wrote the words, “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.”
wLEO8 TIL researchers reported duplicating the glue that the sandcastle worms secrete and use to stick sand grains together underwater. They believe the glue to have applications as a biocompatible medical adhesive, for instance to repair shattered bones. For bone repair, it can replace pins and screws
wLgKY TIL that the Free French forces that liberated Paris in WW2 were pre-selected to be completely white, despite colored soldiers making up a majority of the Free French forces. Both the US and UK demanded their exclusion from the liberation.
l7Jn5 TIL that Oliver Cromwell died shortly after developing a bout of malaria. Quinine was known as an effective treatment at the time, but he refused it because it had been discovered by Catholics.