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TIL in France it is legal to marry a dead person. It must be approved by the President and Justice Minister. The bride or groom stands beside a photo of their significant other. The phrase “till death do us part” is eliminated from the vows and “I do” is replaced with saying “I did.”

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wLZQ6 TIL that Aretha Franklin's signature song "Respect" was actually written and performed by Otis Redding two years before she first sang it. "Redding's version is a plea from a desperate man, who will give his woman anything she wants... as long as he gets his due respect".
NxoP TIL William Shakespeare invented the word swagger. In fact he invented over 1,700 common words that we use today, including addiction (Othello), bedazzled (The Taming of the Shrew), cold-blooded (King John), eyeball (The Tempest), and puking (As You Like It).
RnL4 TIL that when Tim Berners-Lee submitted his proposal for what would become the WorldWideWeb, his boss wrote “vague, but exciting” on the cover, giving the go-ahead that resulted in the modern internet.
6Eg9w TIL Nat sec advisor Brzezinski was woken at 3am by a call telling him Russia launched 250 ICBMs at the U. S. Minutes later, he received another call: The early-warning system actually showed 2,000 inbound missiles. As he began to phone the president, he received a third call: It was a false alarm.
LQbBZ TIL the steam engine, the wind turbine, and the vending machine were invented 2000 years ago by a Greek engineer named Hero