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TIL In 1971, the crew of Apollo 15 carried about 400 unauthorized postal covers to the Moon in order to be sold. Because the astronauts were paid $7000 each even though they returned the money, they were accused of profiting from their mission and never allowed to fly in space again.

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b9wdN TIL Hugh Laurie gave Lin-Manuel Miranda the idea for the song "You'll Be Back" from Hamilton after guest starring on House in 2009. Miranda mentioned to Laurie he was trying to write a breakup letter from King George to the colonies and "without blinking, he improv'd at me, 'Awwww, you'll be back'."
VBMjQ TIL The Yardbirds had 3 of the top 5 guitarists on Rolling Stones’ list of top 100 guitarists of all time (Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page).
pVdN TIL: That the Parrotfish eats dead coral, but since it has no stomach, their meals pass straight through the long intestine, exploding in a cloud of sand out the backdoor. Larger parrotfish are like sand factories, producing as much as 840 pounds of sand per year.
QRdd TIL that James Watson, one of the scientists who discovered the helical structure of DNA, believes that stupidity is a disease and stupid people should be “cured”, people from Africa are inherently less intelligent, and that he would never hire a fat person.
LkVDv TIL of Dick Assman, a Canadian gas station employee that was propelled to fame by his name. His father's name was Adolf Assman.