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TIL that during the filming of Eastern Promises, Viggo Mortensen’s Russian Mafia tattoos were so realistic that when he walked into a Russian Diner in London, everyone fell silent out of fear.

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woK0W TIL "to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps" is an example of an impossible task. The idiom dates at least to 1834, from the Workingman's Advocate: "It is conjectured that Mr. Murphee will now be enabled to hand himself over the Cumberland river or a barn yard fence by the straps of his boots.
6E56Q TIL Scott Carpenter was the only NASA Mercury astronaut who hadn’t finished college. After his spaceflight, the university granted him his degree because "his subsequent training as an astronaut more than made up for the deficiency in the subject of heat transfer."
epwyD Today I learned that people with poor eyesight tend to be more intellectually inclined.
5P0r TIL The chances of us eating even one spider in our sleep throughout our lifetime is close to 0%
lgdV TIL that in 1945 Soviet school children presented a US Ambassador with a carved US Seal as a gesture of friendship. It hung in his office for 7 years before discovering it contained a listening device.