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TIL that Al Stewart quit song writing in the 1970s & moved to London to play cover songs. His neighbor Paul Simon rejuvenated his passion & happenstance led him to write "Year of the Cat." He thought it had no commercial appeal so he made it the last track on a 1976 album. It still pays his rent.

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j64Kn TIL that an asteroid traveling at 20 kilometres (12.4 mi) per second collided near South Africa 3.26 billion years ago creating a megatsunami that extended to a depth of thousands of meters beneath the surface of the ocean and rose to the height of a skyscraper when it reached the shorelines.
vZER TIL that the disclaimer “No animals were harmed during the making of this film” can be put on movies, even if animals died during the production, as long as cameras weren’t rolling at the time.
W7By8 TIL that up to 4% of Normandy's beaches are composed of shrapnel from the D-Day Landings.
NXngb TIL NASA's Gemini 6a astronauts & craft were saved by a fluke. At ignition an electrical plug came off shutting down the engines. Later a dust cover was found left on a gas generator in error. Had the plug not fallen off the furl flow would have been choked, triggering a perilous pad ejection.
Y7dbW TIL that Marjorie Fleming (1803–1811), a Scottish child writer and poet admired by Robert Louis Stevenson, is notable for a diary she kept during the last 18 months of her life. She died of meningitis a month short of her ninth birthday. Her manuscripts are held in the National Library of Scotland.