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TIL that Freddie Mercury gave DJ Kenny Everett one of the first copies of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, informing him that it was his personal record not meant to be played on air. Everett disregarded the request and played it on his show 14 times in two days, leading to the song’s massive success.

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NXdAJ TIL of the discovery of chemotherapy. During WWII it was discovered that mustard gas reduced white blood cell counts. In the 1940s, two pharmacologists examined the effects of mustard gas in treating lymphoma in mice. They then treated a patient with nonHodgkin's lymphoma with the chemical agent.
5APP TIL in Star Wars Episode 4 during the Chewbacca prisoner transfer scene, Mark Hamill improvised the cell block number 1138 as a reference to George Lucas’s film THX 1138. Lucas was not impressed.
E1Zm0 TIL A man, Denver Lee St. Clair died after being subjected to an atomic wedgie by his 33 year old stepson
GY7mE TIL of Cannibal Island - a small island in Siberia where the Soviet Union forcibly deported 6,000 citizens. They were abandoned with few supplies and only flour for food. Disease and cannibalism quickly ran rampant and after 13 weeks, 2/3 of the original deportees were dead.
J1QKV TIL the famous photo of Marines raising the American flag over Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima taken on Feb. 23, 1945, was actually the second flag raised there that day. AP photographer Joe Rosenthal missed the first raising because he was "still climbing up the mountain at the time"