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TIL magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin went to French controlled Algeria in 1856 to show the power of French magic. He lifted a metal box in front of a crowd, then had a warrior that he had made "as weak as a woman" try. Turning on electromagnets in the ground, he made the metal box unliftable.

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5Y6NP TIL Kurt Vonnegut had a cameo appearance in the movie; ‘Back to School.’ When the protagonist (Rodney Dangerfield) is asked how he is gong to write a paper on ‘Vonnegut’ for literature class, if he hasn’t read any of the books? ...the actual Kurt Vonnegut shows up at his dorm room.
XEKl8 TIL MyPillow has been sued for making claims that the company’s pillows could treat and cure multiple diseases, including multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy.
xVjZ5 TIL the founder of IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad, was so frugal that he would regularly pocket salt and pepper packets at restaurants, reuse teabags, and drove a 1993 Volvo. He was worth $58.7 billion at the time of his death
jNajn TIL that women are far more likely to kill people they know, and to do so by the stereotypical techniques (for women, at least) of poisoning and asphyxiation.
Knkw TIL that according to Navajo culture the weaver of a rug would deliberately put an imperfection, called a “ch’ihónít’i” (“spirit line”), believed to allow the release of the weaver’s spirit from the woven item, and also symbolizes the perfection-in-imperfection