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TIL that an early black member of the Mormon church was denied access to temple rituals due to her race, but was declared an eternal servant of Joseph Smith's family in the afterlife in a special ceremony created for her, which she was not permitted to attend in person.

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Ypwgd TIL the Darien Scheme in 1698 was Scotland’s sole attempt at colonization. The effort failed but cost £400k (£71m inflation-adjusted) – about 20% of the nation’s capital. It crippled Scotland’s economy and was a major factor in its Act of Union with England in 1707, thus forming the United Kingdom.
ANYWa TIL Senator Strom Thurmond had a child out of wedlock named Essie Washington-Williams who was black. She revealed herself as his daughter after his death at the age of 100. She tried to join the 'Daughters of the Confederacy', as she was eligible through her father's ancestry, but she was rejected.
D4EV TIL that the first entirely computer generated movie sequence in cinema history was the Genesis Device demonstration video in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The studio that made the scene would later become Pixar.
LMk9 TIL that just before boarding the vessel that he was attacking, Blackbeard would take slow burning fuse matches and, with bright red ribbon, tie them in his hair and beard. When lit, these smoking matches gave him the appearance of the Devil.
xyB7 TIL a 1,000 metre (3,281 ft) tall tower named Kingdom Tower is currently under construction in Saudi Arabia. If one were to stack the two original Twin Towers on top of one another and then place the Eiffel Tower in top of that, the resulting structure would not be as tall as Kingdom Tower.