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TIL the town of Embarrass, Minnesota, gets its name from the French word Embarras, meaning a difficult obstacle to overcome. It is also one of the coldest places in America, with a growing season a month shorter than that of Fairbanks, Alaska.

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7r4Gb TIL that motorcycle world champion, Barry Sheene, enjoyed smoking so much that he had a hole drilled through the chin-bar on his full-face helmet allowing him to smoke right up to the start of a race. He died aged 52 from cancer of the oesophagus and stomach.
1mVO TIL After Elvis performed Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, Paul Simon, who attended the show, said “That’s it, we might as well all give up now.”
b6ndQ TIL that an adult panda absorbs 54.8–66.1 mg (0.846–1.020 gr) of cyanide a day through its diet. To prevent poisoning, they have evolved anti-toxic mechanisms to protect themselves.
kO61m TIL: Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s love for theater began when he saw Arthur Miller’s All My Sons at the age of 12. The last time Hoffman acted on stage was in 2012, performing in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
JY4Vk TIL that Samuel Downing was the last surviving Revolutionary War veteran and only one to be photographed at the age of 102 in 1864.