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TIL Carrol Spinney, the puppeteer who played Big Bird for 46 years, was in talks to fly on the Challenger mission to orbit the Earth as Big Bird. The plans fell through, and the shuttle infamously blew up shortly after takeoff.

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b67p0 TIL archangels are not the highest rank of angel, in fact they are second-lowest. This misconception stems from John Milton's "Paradise Lost"
6E0eW TIL that to reduce infanticide, Sweden passed a law in 1778 allowing unwed pregnant women to go to a different area where she is unknown to give birth. The midwife was forbidden to ask her identity or to ask who the father was. The baby was then put in an orphanage.
P1ggZ TIL Laos is the most bombed country in history relative to its population size
x6Vr7 TIL about a super modern €1.4bn nuclear power plant in Austria that never went into service, because a 50.47% majority in a referendum voted against it.. after it was built.
M1lm TIL in 1967 the Prime Minister of Australia mysteriously disappeared while swimming. He was pronounced dead 2 days later but no body has ever been found.