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TIL Halliburton once tried to patent patenting

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m7Go TIL Alec Guinness first thought Star Wars was “fairy tale rubbish”, but the film’s sense of moral good, and the studio’s doubling of his initial salary offer, appealed to him, and he agreed to take the part of Obi-Wan on the condition that he would not have to do any publicity to promote the film.
4ynN TIL when President Chaim Weizmann died in 1952, Einstein was asked to be Israel’s second president, but he declined, stating that he had “neither the natural ability nor the experience to deal with human beings.”
590n TIL: The total length of all coastlines in Canada is roughly equivalent to five laps around planet Earth.
7rQPx TIL the name "California" comes from a 16th century romance novel about a mythical island populated solely by black women warriors armed with gold weapons, ruled by a Queen named Calafia.
kO1Yd TIL that 90% of people with the last name “Washington” are black according to the 2000 US census. Of the remaining ten percent, 50% are white, and 30% are mixed race.