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TIL Clair Cameron Patterson was counting lead isotopes in rocks to find the age of the earth, after finding the age of the earth he also found out there was unhealthy amounts of lead in the atmosphere caused by tetraethyl lead, Patterson campaigned to stop the use of tetraethyl lead and won in 1978.

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gMlA9 TIL an 18th century American businessman published a book in which he ranted about politicians, the clergy, and his wife. It had no punctuation and had random capitalization. In the 2nd edition, he added an extra page with 13 lines of punctuation marks, stating that readers could put them anywhere.
PY8gn TIL of Audie Murphy who was awarded every military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism.
N7p8N TIL Nietzsche, Freud, Rilke, and Rée all fell in love with the same woman, Lou Salomé. Intellectual and prolific, she was the first female psychoanalyst and lived free of society’s prescription for women. She was the ultimate feminist/ubermensch, yet is completely forgotten by history.
xVM5k TIL since the 1950s, every baseball in an MLB game has to be rubbed with mud harvested from a secret location, and the same family has been doing it for three generations
dQdQ TIL polish author Stanisław Jerzy Lec escaped a German work camp in 1943 after killing his guard with a shovel when taken to dig his own grave.