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TIL The tail of a feathered dinosaur has been found perfectly preserved in amber from Myanmar. The one-of-a-kind discovery helps put flesh on the bones of these extinct creatures, opening a new window on the biology of a group that dominated Earth for more than 160 million years.

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bX0a TIL that when VCRs/Betamax initially came out, TV and film studios tried to contend that recording content from your television onto tape to watch again later constituted copyright infringement. It took a 1984 Supreme Court case to finally rule it as ‘fair use’.
QJ8Kp TIL whenever Abraham Lincoln felt the urge to tell someone off, he would compose a “hot letter.” He’d pile all of his anger into a note, “put it aside until his emotions cooled down,” Doris Kearns Goodwin once explained on NPR, “and then write: ‘Never sent. Never signed.’
e0nJg TIL dying stars cause space to smell like "hot metal, diesel fumes and barbecue." Astronauts have also compared the smell of the moon to "spent gunpowder."
wyyY [TIL]Coconut crabs may be responsible for the disappearance of Amelia Earhart’s remains, consuming them after her death and hoarding her skeletal remnants in their burrows.
xVBA0 TIL the 5th Governor of California, John Weller, was anti-slavery, wanting to use his power to eliminate it. The 6th Governor, lasted only 5 days in office, before resigning. The 7th Governor, John Downey, was pro-slavery, owning upwards of 25 slaves at one time.