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TIL That there was a professional football league in the 80s known as the USFL and fielded a team from New Jersey known as the Generals

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VMMQ8 TIL of Sarah Jones, a camera assistant who was struck and killed by a train while working on the film Midnight Rider. Director Randal Miller was charged with criminal trespass and involuntary manslaughter and became the first director to go to jail as a result of a death on set.
EaPV TIL that the Soviet launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, was such a shocking event that at least one theater manager stopped the movie to announce it. The movie was Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, and in the audience was a young Stephen King.
loBlK TIL A man received a heart transplant from a donor who committed suicide. The recipient married the widow of the donor and committed suicide 12 years after the transplant.
5PgQ TIL that it was common for some Romans to take up a “beautiful-looking” prepubescent boy as a sex-slave to serve both the master and mistress of a household, castrating him so the boy retains his prepubescent qualities.
8aXA4 TIL there are about 1,500 species of cicadas known. There are those that appear yearly in midsummer, and there are also the so-called "periodic" cicadas. They appear at prime number intervals - 7 years, 13 years and 17 years. Once every 221 years, the 13-year cycle and 17-year cycle cicadas overlap.