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TIL after learning he would lose the Tonight Show on NBC, Conan O'brien unveiled a new character on the show, the Bugatti Veyron Mouse, adorned with fake mouse ears and accompanied by a master recording of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction", just because. It cost NBC a total of $1.5 million.

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vPYZ7 TIL about William English Walling, wealthy grandson of the 1880 Democratic vice presidential candidate who became a trade union socialist and co-founded the NAACP with W.E.B. Du Bois
b6o4N TIL that Ben Franklin's invention of the lightning rod was blamed by church leaders for the 1755 Cape Ann earthquake off the coast of Colonial Massachusetts — as his "heretical rods" interfered with the "artillery of Heaven" & deprived God of using lightning as "tokens of His displeasure."
N45N TIL that a floating British base was abandoned until a rogue DJ moved there. He declared the floating fortress the Principality of Sealand. He raised a flag, named himself Prince and his wife Princess. Sealand withstood court challenges, and remains an independent nation to this day.
JYbn4 TIL of the Battle of Empel, deemed a miracle in its time: stranded Spanish troops were surrounded by a Dutch fleet. After finding a painting representing Virgin Mary while digging trenches by a church, the river rapidly froze that night, allowing the Spanish to attack the Dutch and burn their ships.
Oo8d6 TIL the scientific adviser to the 2014 film Interstellar spent two weeks talking Christopher Nolan out of having a character travelling faster than the speed of light, as it defies the laws of physics