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TIL train robber Elmer McCurdy's mummified corpse was used as decoration in carnivals during the 1920's and wasn't properly identified as real until 1976. It scared a young boy named Mark Taylor so greatly it stuck with him into adulthood, and inspired him to create He-Man's nemesis: Skeletor.

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xV6MB TIL a bog is acidic & a fen is alkaline; a swamp has trees and woody plants & a marsh has other types of plants
6Ew8 TIL Marlon Brando denied his oscar for Best Actor in The Godfather in protest of the treatment of Native Americans in film.
ExyP TIL: Bacteria are present in clouds and help make snow/rain/clouds better than dust
YgoZ TIL that Ray Charles, in December 2002, gave 10 of his 12 children each a check for one million dollars at a family luncheon, while the other two could not make it.
WkBjA TIL Pope Gregory IX's association of cats with witchcraft led to the wholesale slaughter of the critters, and some scholars believe believe that by the 1300’s, Europe’s cat numbers were sufficiently depleted to prevent them from killing rats and mice, allowing the bubonic plague to spread.