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TIL Christiaan Huygens was one of the first astronomers to apply mathematical principles to the design of optics rather than trial and error, and his telescope could study Saturn's ring system. The Huygenian eyepiece he invented in the 17th century is still in use today

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JYW9m TIL about John Howard Griffin, a journalist who in 1959 took anti-vitiligo drugs and spent 15 hours daily under an ultraviolet lamp to temporarily "become" a black man and travel through the South for six weeks.
m7Go TIL Alec Guinness first thought Star Wars was “fairy tale rubbish”, but the film’s sense of moral good, and the studio’s doubling of his initial salary offer, appealed to him, and he agreed to take the part of Obi-Wan on the condition that he would not have to do any publicity to promote the film.
Egod TIL that in the United States, having child pornography often results in a harsher sentence than actually molesting a child would
yVr5p TIL it was fashionable for people in 1686 to bandage their B-Holes because Louie XIV had anal fistula surgery
ADjWn TIL that Pringles aren’t actually chips!! It was ruled in a UK court in 2008 after they found that Pringles are actually only 42% potatoes.