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TIL Dolly Parton gave each family who lost its primary residence in the 2016 TN fires $1,000 a month for five months. When she arrived to help dole out the final payments, she brought the nearly 900 families an unexpected bonus – another $5,000 each for a total of $10,000.

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aXOb TIL: Charles Guiteau, the assassin of President James A. Garfield, chose a .442 caliber British Bulldog revolver with an ivory handle because he thought it would look good in a museum exhibit after the assassination. The revolver has since been lost and its whereabouts are unknown.
O81e TIL: In 1875, James Wickham brought whales to Great Salt Lake. He had two 35-foot Australian whales shipped to Great Salt Lake (by boat to San Francisco and then by rail to Salt Lake City) wherein he released them. Off they swam, never to be seen again!
7D5r TIL The element ‘Cobalt’ gets it’s name from the German 'kobold’ which means 'goblin’. Miners found cobalt veins near their silver, and blamed this strange and dangerous metal on goblins, and thus named it after them.
78Gx7 TIL That one of the legs of The Stratosphere in Las Vegas has a bend in it that doesn’t affect structural integrity
rRK40 TIL The earliest known life-forms on Earth are fossilised micro-organisms, found in hydrothermal vent precipitates (holes in the sea floor). They date to between 3.77 billion and 4.28 billion years ago.