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55

TIL that the Earth orbits the Sun

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LLG9 TIL that in 1964, a man placed himself in a box and had himself air-freighted from London to Australia because he couldn’t afford the airfare. He nearly died of dehydration.
WN78 TIL that after seeing Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the astronauts of Apollo 8, the first manned mission to leave Earth’s orbit, were tempted to radio back reporting the appearance of a black monolith.
0wBoL TIL the armonica which Benjamin Franklin invented in 1761 (and some believed caused madness) owes its disorienting sound due to the way we perceive and locate sound. Above 4khz we use loudness for location. Below 1khz we use phase differences. The armonica (1-4khz) is in a range the brain is unsure.
ANkOB TIL singer songwriter Leonard Cohen claimed to have written approximately 150 draft verses of his most famous song "Hallelujah", a claim substantiated by his notebooks containing manifold revisions and additions, and by contemporary interviews.
R7GAa TIL that Elizabeth Coleman White, whose family owned a cranberry farm, teamed up with botanist Frederick Coville to develop and cultivate the first blueberry crop. White paid people for each bush they found with blueberries that measured at least 5/8 of an inch. Coville uprooted and grafted them.