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TIL In 1842, Abraham Lincoln publicly chastised James Shields in the course of a debate about banking in Illinois. The ridicule led Shields to challenge Lincoln to a duel in which the victor took the opponents' life and pride. On the duel-day, they called a truce with the bystanders' encouragement.

ePpk TIL: In American TV there is something called “The Friday night death slot” Many canceled shows Including Firefly, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr, and The Good Guys all aired in that slot.
oReKR TIL Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's final task on the moon was to leave a small package of memorial items to Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov, and Apollo 1 astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee.
5yGr TIL that the four vultures in Disney’s The Jungle Book were both designed after and originally supposed to be voiced by The Beatles.
4Xv4N TIL scientists searching for an explanation for an unusually cool area of sky instead discovered a 'supervoid'; an empty spherical blob 1.8 billion light years across that is the largest object in the known universe. An estimated 10,000 galaxies were “missing” from the part of the sky it sits in.
QYBp TIL Ronnie Barrett, creator of the Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle, developed the now famous rifle without any background in engineering or manufacturing. In the last 100 years, Barrett is one of only 7 individuals to have invented firearms adopted by the United States Military.