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TIL In 1895, workers finished the largest achromatic refractor that would ever be created: the Yerkes telescope. George Ellery Hale, an American astronomer, convinced the Chicago tycoon Charles Tyson Yerkes to finance the telescope

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N7lrE TIL of Nelson Sullivan, a pre-internet vlogger who shot over 1,900 hours of tape over 7 years, filming Manhattan's 1980s downtown life. He sought to tape all of NY's citizens, including its outcasts, parties, street festivals, conversations with taxi drivers, and a variety of behavior on the streets
8aBN4 TIL phone numbers on the North American Numbering Plan between 555-0100 and 555-0199 are required to be non-working in all area codes, as they are reserved for fictitious phone numbers in entertainment and advertising, such as for movies and TV Shows.
v1yej TIL When hummingbirds reach puberty, the males’ beaks grow longer and sharper. They use them to stab other males in the throat to secure mating spots.
X0Pn8 TIL there are over 300 varieties of corn, with kernels ranging from 3 mm to over 3 cm, in colors like black, purple, red, green, and blue, with the Hopi Indians in Arizona still cultivating a blue type.
vP4Jr TIL A monument in Kyoto contains severed noses from 38000 Koreans and 30000 Chinese from a Japanese invasion in the 1590s. No Japanese textbook mentioned it until the 80s, after a publisher resisted pressure from the ministry of education to use a softer tone and praise the invasion leader Hideyoshi