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TIL The U.S. offered land to exiled French Bonapartists in Alabama to grow grapes and olives, but the colony failed due to the settlers' lack of farming skills and unsuitable soil.

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N7yoJ TIL that the most complex word in the English language, or the word with the longest dictionary definition, is the word "set", with 430 senses and a ~60,000-word definition in the Oxford English Dictionary.
ABdl TIL John Michell - called both the father of seismology and the father of magnetometry. “One of the greatest unsung black scientists of all time”, he was the first person known to propose the existence of black holes, earthquakes travel in waves. No one knows what he looked like.
a841J TIL In 1985 a private radiotherapy clinic in Brazil was abandoned, leaving behind a radiation source with 100 grams of Cesium-137. Thieves stole the container in 1987. Over 200 people were contaminated and 4 people died after it was broken into (and the glowing blue dust was spread around)
KYAK9 TIL in 1940s and 50s America coin-op machines called the “Voice-O-Graph” were commonly available to instantly record a single vinyl record from an attached microphone for a few quarters
BgERr TIL that the iconic ‘rockney’ duo Chas and Dave played on the Eminem track ‘My Name Is’