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TIL that Irish boxer Steve Collins used a variety of mind games to unnerve and defeat opponent Chris Eubank. These included allegedly having himself hypnotised before the fight and listening to headphones during Eubank’s entrance.

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LkoLp TIL that The Big Beat, a 1980 song by Billy Squier, has been sampled in more than 260 recordings including Jay-Z's “99 Problems”, Alicia Keys' “Girl on Fire” and Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Higher Ground". The original song never charted.
E1byX TIL of a bogus Deep Purple fronted by original Purple vocalist Rod Evans which toured North America in 1980 with shows often ending in riots. The real Deep Purple found out and placed an ad stating that none of them would be appearing. They sued and won and claim to have no knowledge of Evans since.
awOWN TIL that Pythagoras cannot have been the first to discover the Pythagorean theorem because it was known and used by the Babylonians over a millennium before he was born.
GA97E TIL of the Tel Aviv central bus station - a mega structure that includes a nuclear bomb shelter for 16,000 people. The station was designed to be confusing, so that commuters would spend time shopping. Most of it became completely abandoned, taken over by violent criminals and even a colony of bats.
VMklk TIL the Molotov Cocktail was not invented by Russians, but instead by under-supplied Finns who used them as improvised anti-tank weapons against the USSR in the Winter War. The famous Finnish alcoholic beverage company ALKO actually switched to mass producing Molotov Cocktails during the war.