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TIL Charles Redheffer was an American inventor who claimed to have invented a perpetual motion machine, He was later exposed when an engineer found a hidden cord that led to an upper floor. Upstairs he found an old man who was turning a hand-crank with one hand and eating bread with the other

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neWM7 TIL of Regulatory Capture, when a governmental regulatory agency ceases to promote the interest of the public, but instead does the exact opposite by advancing the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.
m1Rep TIL that the tiny island country of Singapore holds a collective estimated reserve of about US$1.87 trillion dollars, and the actual reserve is substantially larger than that.
yVGmv TIL the critically panned Batman and Robin film was going to have a sequel called Batman Unchained and were planning on bringing Madonna or Courtney Love as Harley Quinn in her live-action debut.
w5ZJ TIL Mark Twain told an interviewer that he was not actually Mark Twain, but Mark Twain’s twin brother, but since his parents couldn’t tell which one drowned in the bath tub when they were babies, the parents decided that the one who lived must have been Mark.
R7wR1 TIL - Vindaloo (curry) originated from Portuguese sailors, carne de vinha d'alhos ("meat in garlic wine marinade"). The basic structure of the dish was "preserved" raw ingredients, packed in wooden barrels of layers of pork & garlic, soaked in red wine. This was "Indianized" by the local Goan cooks.