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TIL that Victor Hugo requested a very simple funeral with a pauper's casket. The government and Parisians made it a massive event. ~2 million people attended, brothels shut down, and a feminist journal complained that gymnasts and the department stores preceded the suffragists in the procession.

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wo6X6 TIL about Operation Paul Bunyan, where the US cut down a tree in the Korean DMZ as a response to the murder of two officers, deploying over 800 soldiers and air support without any shots fired. The operation left a 19-foot stump as a reminder of the incident.
KOKO4 TIL that Matt Damon was offered the lead in Avatar and 10% of the film's profits — but he turned it down out of respect for the Bourne franchise, and ended up losing out on $250 million as a result.
PY4OJ TIL Amerigo Vespucci (and by extension, America) may have been named after St. Emericus of Hungary. St. Emericus died at 24 during a boar hunt, and was only canonized 52 years later after a series of miracles occured at his grave. His bones were dug up for the ceremony.
D6br TIL that when you use laundry detergent labelled as a “brightener,” it doesn’t make the clothing any cleaner or restore its color….it’s actually a chemical combination that absorbs more light in the electromagnetic spectrum and re-emits fluorescent light to make the clothing appear brighter.
5VD4P TIL that back in the day, marijuana was in all kinds of medicines, like stuff for headaches, pain, and even depression. It was everywhere until the 1930s, when the government decided to freak out about it and make it illegal.