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TIL Aleksey Grigorievich Bobrinsky was the illegitimate son of Catherine the great who started a house fire to hide his birth; his son Aleksey Alekseyevich Bobrinsky founded the first sugar refinery in the Russian Empire and financed some of the first rail lines in the Empire.

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Ypb7W TIL Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was elected with a historic landslide majority in 1984, and a record second majority in 1988. Since 1997, he and his wife reside part of the year in their Palm Beach house and hang out at private billionaires clubs
wL558 TIL While filming Predator, Jesse Ventura was delighted to find out from the wardrobe department that his arms were 1” bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. He suggested to Arnold they measure arms, winner gets a bottle of champagne. Ventura lost, as Arnold set this up with the wardrobe department
j6nrQ TIL there are over 200 "wind phones" in the US where grieving people can 'talk' to relatives - they feature an old-fashioned phone booth with a phone with a dial on it, and were first popularized in Japan after the Fukushima tsunami
mxkAY TIL “in most wealthy countries, governments have simplified tax filing for its citizens, thus making software such as TurboTax unnecessary for most citizens”
xeRD TIL there is nothing inherently technical or necessary in a microwave popcorn bag. You can make microwave popcorn in a brown paper bag with normal kernels.