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TIL that due to the limited number of different names on Norfolk Island, the island’s telephone directory lists people with common names by their nickname. There are entries for Cane Toad, Lettuce Leaf, Goof, Diddles, Rubber Duck, Carrots and Tarzan.

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nrMW TIL that besides the Zapruder film of the JFK assassination, there is the Nix film (VIDEO). The Nix film shows the entire JFK assassination from the complete OPPOSITE side of Dealey Plaza, facing the grassy knoll and Zapruder himself (who can be seen filming the assassination).
w766 TIL In 1896 in Texas, a railroad agent organized a head-on collision between 2 locomotives as part of a publicity stunt for his railroad company and got 40K people to show up. Unexpectedly, the crash caused both engine boilers to explode, killing 3 people and injuring scores of others.
x61l1 TIL that Julius Caesar was never actually an emperor
gMWkA TIL that 12,000 bears are farmed for their bile in Asia which is used in traditional Chinese medicine and generates $2bn per year. Farming always involves surgery on the bears to insert a catheter or to cut a hole through the abdomen by which the bile leaks. Bear bile has no medicinal effect.
5VgmD TIL on March 22nd, 1989, a sub-kilometer-sized asteroid called 581 Asclepius came within 500,000 miles of hitting the earth. The collision would have released energy comparable to a 600 megaton atomic bomb. The asteroid was discovered nine days after its closest approach to the Earth.