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TIL there is a legend that Gibraltar will remain British as long as the local macaque monkey population exists. During WWII the population dwindled to only 7, and Churchill ordered their numbers to be replenished because of this belief

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xVnKw TIL Bill Nye had worked alongside Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future: The Animated Series, where he played Doc Brown's assistant and demonstrated several experiments. These segments later led to Nye getting his own show.
YO6A TIL of the ‘Secret War’, where the CIA recruited 50% of the Hmong population to fight for the US in the Vietnam War. Afterwards, they were completely abandoned.
789wx TIL that an early application of the "Buddy System" was used to prevent trench foot in WWI. Rather than each soldier being responsible for just their own feet, they and their assigned buddy were jointly responsible. Trench foot rates dropped significantly with this innovation.
NXlpM TIL that Anna Stubblefield, a Rutgers professor, was convicted of assault after claiming a nonverbal man with cerebral palsy consented to sex with her via “facilitated communication,” a discredited technique where the facilitator moves the person’s hand to type.
X064k TIL that when Sebastian Shaw arrived at the set of Return of the Jedi, he ran into his friend Ian McDiarmid (Palpatine). When McDiarmid asked Shaw what he was doing there, Shaw responded, "I don't know, dear boy, I think it's something to do with science-fiction." Shaw was the face of Darth Vader.