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TIL despite earning millions as an actor, Mickey Rooney declared bankruptcy several times, having gambled away his fortune. Towards the end of his life, he entrusted his finances to his stepson, who funneled Rooney's earnings to pay for his own lavish lifestyle. He died with an estate of $18,000.

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JoL8 TIL Big Ben Clock Towers time is kept accurate by adding or removing pennies on its pendulum changing the clock’s speed by +/- 0.4 seconds per day
XRJD TIL H. G. Wells created a tabletop-esque war game, in 1913, called “Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books.” which can be read and downloaded via Project Gutenberg.
pZaQ TIL that “Honda has never built a V8 for passenger vehicles. In the late 1990s, the company resisted considerable pressure from its American dealers for a V8 engine with American Honda reportedly sending one dealer a shipment of V8 beverages to silence them.”
jNDop TIL since the early 1990s, 10% of all electricity consumed in the United States has come from decommissioned Soviet nuclear warheads.
1Kpd TIL the Pyramids were ordered to be disassembled and their blocks used to build dams on the Nile. The chief architect personally opposed, but knew he’d be replaced if he defied orders. So he prepared a false cost analysis showing that freshly quarried stone would cost less: thus saving the Pyramids.