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TIL that in 1968 the french author and résistance hero Romain Gary challenged Clint Eastwood to a duel after he learned that Eastwood had an affair with his wife, the actress Jean Seberg

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4Pm6 TIL that low-background steel, which has not been contaminated by radioactive fallout from nuclear tests and is used in equipment sensitive to radiation, primarily comes from salvaged ships sunk before the Trinity test.
E1QQ7 TIL of George Engel; an American anarchist who, after being falsely arrested for a bombing, wrote a letter asking the judge not to give any clemency. His last words before being hanged were "Hurrah for anarchy! This is the happiest moment of my life".
69m7Q TIL the Hoover Dam was completed 2 years ahead of schedule
9YEoQ TIL before 1975, the BBC overwrote or destroyed old show tapes. Hundreds of Doctor Who episodes were thought lost forever, until a worldwide hunt began to turn them up—e.g. 2 in a London Mormon Church, and a goldmine 9 in Nigeria (employees had ignored instructions to burn them). 97 remain unfound.
78aax TIL that the oldest ship in the world still afloat is the USS Constitution. Built in the 1790s to serve as one of the first ships of the brand-new US Navy, she served for approximately 80 years before being removed from service and converted into a floating museum.