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TIL “Christopher Columbus, in an effort to induce the natives of Jamaica to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, successfully intimidated the natives by correctly predicting a lunar eclipse”

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vPa8x TIL there are anonymous baby drop boxes where parents can surrender unwanted newborns without fear of prosecution.
kDa4 TIL of the Taxil Hoax, where a Frenchman spent 12 years as a Roman Catholic writing anti-Masonic accounts, only to reveal it was a prank on the Church. As he said “…I thought I would kill myself laughing at some of the things proposed, but everything went; there is no limit to human stupidity”
697MZ TIL that Small Business Saturday was created and promoted by American Express.
9xgp TIL out of all 728 production in the Star Trek franchise Stephen Hawking is the only person to play himself (excluding historical people who have appeared via stock footage).
78pZr TIL a few months before his death in 1896, Alfred Nobel was prescribed nitroglycerin for this heart condition.