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TIL the actor Kurt Russell was probably the first person to officially report the Phoenix Lights (one of the largest UFO sightings of all time). He was a flying a plane into Phoenix at the time and reported it to air traffic control.

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YpPYP TIL William Goldman, writer of 'The Princess Bride', wrote the screenplay for his two daughters, who were 7 and 4 at the time. He asked them what they wanted to be in the story, with one saying a princess and one being a bride. He told them "That'll be the title."
gMpbA TIL that Bede (CE 673-735) referred to the Earth as an “orb” and wrote that “it is not merely circular like a shield or spread out like a wheel, but resembles more a ball.” This idea was repeated by philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers throughout the Middle Ages.
9YZpr TIL that Ethernet inventor Robert Metcalfe predicted that the internet would collapse in 1996, promising to eat his words if not. In 1997, he took a printed copy of his column that predicted the collapse, put it in a blender with some liquid and then consumed the pulpy mass.
eRa5 TIL Muhammad Ali called Michael J. Fox after his Parkinson’s diagnosis and said, “Now that you’re in the fight, we’ll win.”
mxkGP TIL that when the Japanese emperor announced Japan's surrender in WW2, his speech was too formal and vague for the general populace to understand. Many listeners were left confused and it took some people hours, some days, to understand that Japan had, in fact, surrendered.