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TIL that Grand Duke Alexis, son of Russian Tsar Alexander II, made regular overseas trips to have tattoos done by master artists, including a journey to Japan to get an elaborate dragon tattoo covering his entire right arm - and at the end of the 19th century, was the most tattooed person in Europe

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yrDw TIL in an act of industrial espionage, a Japanese scientist who stole an incomplete capacitor design led to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for companies like IBM, Dell, Apple, HP and Intel, in a decade long onslaught of faulty electronics known as The Capacitor Plague.
ZpRVv TIL that the roar of the MGM lion (Leo) is actually a tiger roar. The sound engineer determined that a lion's roar was not sufficiently ferocious, but a tiger's roar was.
ngEW TIL Sir Anthony Hopkins is renowned for his ability to memorize lines. He did the 7 page Amistad courtroom speech in one take and usually has his co-actors practice with stand in’s then comes and does it in one take when they are fully ready.
XEv6j TIL that the famed Allied spy Nancy Wake cycled 500 km (310 mi) in three days. She and her radio operator was ambushed and was forced to flee, leaving the radio, so she cycled to the nearest resistance radio and back in three days.
KO0xG TIL marine biologist, Stephen Hillenburg, created an educational comic book about tide pool animals called "The Intertidal Zone" to help educate his students. In later years after becoming an animator he began developing those same characters and concepts for what became "SpongeBob Squarepants."