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TIL Isaac Newton was so obsessed with turning base metal to gold that samples of his hair showed mercury levels up to 40 times higher than average. This is considered to be the reason he went mad in his later years.

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jN8NX TIL about former American slave, John Berry Meachum, who began teaching classes for black people on a steamboat in the middle of the Mississippi River to work around the state of Missouri's prohibition of black education.
R70w9 TIL: There was such a demand for Tom Clancy books that his publisher hired other authors to write "like Tom Clancy". Those books were then published under Tom Clancy's name.
v1lA4 TIL of a 20 Foot, 10 Ton great white shark known as Deep Blue. She is believed to be the largest great white shark ever caught on film.
wxP TIL James Cameron and Ridley Scott were working on a story for an Alien 5 movie until a Fox exec told Cameron, “We’ve got this really good script for Aliens versus Predator.”
xVM71 TIL that US law enforcement officers banned from owning firearms in a personal capacity, are still allowed to posses and carry them in a professional capacity.