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TIL John Brabazon Ponsonby was arrested during the French Revolution for being an aristocrate but was let free because he was too handsome to hang.

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yVdWa TIL that the US Air Force jettisoned a nuclear bomb over Quebec in 1950 due to engine trouble in the B-50 bomber. Luckily, the plutonium core was not installed at the time. The USAF covered up the nuclear incident until the 1980s.
xVKr1 TIL about Clive Wearing, a former conductor and musician who suffers from chronic anterograde and retrograde due to a virus fever in 1985. He lacks the ability to form new memories and cannot recall past memories. He lives life believing that he has only recently awoken from a comatose state.
rNNp4 TIL there are 21 sovereign states that do not have an official army
WkobA TIL that the popular spiral depiction of the Milky Way is actually of another galaxy, Messier 74. Since we live in the Milky Way, we can't take a picture of it from the outside.
E16vx TIL In 1728, the philosopher Voltaire got rich by outsmarting the lottery. The prize money was larger than the cost of all the tickets combined, so Voltaire and his friend formed a syndicate, bought all the tickets, and won several times.