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TIL Conrad Heyer is the earliest-born person of whom a photograph is known to exist. He fought for the Continental Army under the command of George Washington and participated in Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware in December 1776. In 1852, aged 103, he posed for this daguerreotype.

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d8WD9 TIL of the "Brussels effect", which is when EU laws end up raising the standards of regulations worldwide, simply because the EU market is so massive and it's less of a hassle for businesses to just fully adopt EU standards even in non-EU countries
p8wbb TIL before fame, Bruce Springsteen acquired his nickname "The Boss" because he took on the task of collecting the band's nightly pay from their club gigs and distributing it amongst his bandmates. Springsteen is not fond of this nickname, due to his dislike of bosses, but has tacitly accepted it.
P17LL TIL that years before the upcoming Gladiator 2, Russell Crowe commissioned a script for a sequel in which Maximus goes to the afterlife and gets resurrected, appearing in World War 2 and the Vietnam War, and ending with him in a suit and tie at the modern-day Pentagon.
OGYxR TIL of baseball player Fred Merkle. In 1908 he made a base running mistake that ultimately cost his team the pennant. The play became known as “Merkle’s Boner”.
kDBE TIL during WWII British spies posed as fake charity groups to hand out special monopoly games to allied prisoners of war. These games had compasses, maps, real money, and other useful tools for escaping.