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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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NXr9P TIL that in China, there is a problem with "gutter oil", which refers to recycled oil and is often oil that is actually scooped out of sewers and taken to a refinement facility. The oil then ends up sold at a discounted price, often to restaurants, and is visually very similar to new oil.
rjj4 TIL of Ewen Cameron, who in the the 50s ran experiments on humans which involved giving several electric shocks a week, taping blacked out football helmets to their heads and playing repetitive messages in their ears for months at a time. Some patients apparently forgot who they were and how to talk
p8deb TIL about "lonely negatives," such as disgust, disheveled, inept and inert. These are words that, due to a prefix or suffix, appear as though they should have a positive root but none exists or it has vanished from usage.
9YdG6 TIL Sir David Attenborough is the only person to win a BAFTA for a programme in black and white, colour, HD, 3D and 4K.
DQmyD TIL Mary Jane Rathburn aka Brownie Mary was known for illegally baking and distributing cannabis brownies to AIDs patients in the 1980s. Despite several arrests her defiant stance and grandmotherly image garnered public sympathy and media attention, helping to shift perceptions of medical cannabis.