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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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R5jM4 TIL Earth's oldest land ecosystem was spotted in South African rock cores
xV5Jb TIL Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden fame is a legit 747 pilot and on one occasion flew British troops back home from Afghanistan.
oRjjW TIL that Henry IV (1367-1413) was the first English King to speak English as his native language following the Norman Conquest of 1066
aJZb TIL that 3,278 Americans are serving life without parole for non-violent crimes, including petty crimes like shoplifting.
rRv91 TIL The reason Roman structures survive so long is because they used volcanic ash in their concrete, which slowly transforms to aluminum tobermorite when exposed to sea water. Something modern scientists have been trying to do for decades.