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TIL that Michael Crichton, the author of “Jurassic Park” (1990), was a workaholic who followed what he called "a structured approach" of ritualistic self-denial, where, while writing a book, he’d rise increasingly early each day. At one point, Crichton would go to bed at 10 PM and wake up at 2 AM.

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l765a TIL John Hay started his career as a personal assistant to Abraham Lincoln and after Lincoln died, Hays became a true diplomat. He served under Presidents Hayes, Garfield, McKinley, and T. Roosevelt. His career spanned almost five decades. He died while he was still U.S. Secretary of State.
1jKV TIL Gangsta’s Paradise is one of the few Coolio songs to not feature profanity because it was the only way Stevie Wonder would authorise the sampling of his song ‘Pastime Paradise’
e06yL TIL that after a man received a heart transplant from a suicide victim, he went on to marry the donor's widow and then eventually killed himself in the exact same way the donor did.
8e8JP TIL School clocks were initially synchronized by pneumatic tubes that pushed the hands simultaneously in every classroom, from 1877 into the 1920s, when electric impulses were used. Factories and office buildings quickly switched to these systems as well.
0dmgR TIL In China, for many village women, marriage is the primary means of changing their lives. Most of them marry up - moving from the mountain areas to the plains, from the villages to towns and cities, and from the poorer classes to the richer.