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TIL Eric Clapton and George Harrison once had a two hour long guitar duel for the love of Harrison’s wife, Pattie. She is said to have inspired songs by both artists, such as “Wonderful Tonight” and “Something”.

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N7wkE TIL during surgery on a 60-year-old woman, Italian doctors discovered one of the first heart prostheses - an artificial mitral valve - which was implanted almost 50 years ago when the patient was 10, by Christiaan Barnard, the surgeon who performed the world’s first human-to-human heart transplant
8jbZ TIL that J.R.R.Tolkien (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings) and C.S.Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia) were friends at Oxford. They organised a literary group for budding writers who would share their stories over lunch and a beer in the same pub every Tuesday.
6EbD7 TIL Yuan Shikai was elected the first official president of the Republic of China, and was active in establishing modern industrial, judicial and educational systems as well as unifying the currency. As a young man, Yuan was also sent to Korea as supreme adviser on Korean government policies
gRWL TIL that when Joan Baez sent her legendary guitar to Martin Guitars for refurbishment, they discovered a message from a previous luthier which read “Too bad you are a communist”.
9YyKB TIL that two pieces of the same type of metal in space can fuse together seamlessly if they come into contact with each other. Since there is literally nothing between them, the pieces don't "know" that they're separate. This is called Cold Welding.