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TIL The word "checkmate" is derived from the Persian shāh māt ("the king is helpless").

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Ypa9v TIL that the Vikings would hunt narwhals for their “horns” (which are actually teeth) and sell them to clueless European traders as “unicorn horns,” which were thought to have magical properties.
REww TIL Not long before Elvis Presley’s death, a group of Scientologists once tried to recruit Elvis. After the meeting, Elvis fumed: “The hell with those people. There’s no way I’ll ever get involved with that s.o.b. group. All they want is my money.”
n11d TIL It took Pixar 29 hours to render a single frame from Monsters University. If done on a single CPU it would have taken 10,000 years to finish.
R1Xl TIL James Cameron was stricken with food poisoning and during his illness, Cameron had a nightmare about an invincible robot hitman sent from the future to kill him, giving him the idea for The Terminator, which later catapulted his film career.
M7rWa TIL that during the Muhammad Ali vs Henry Cooper first fight, it has been alleged that Ali’s trainer Angelo Dundee used smelling salts to revive a knocked down Ali. This was against British boxing rules, and would have seen Ali disqualified if caught.