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TIL that Wayne Knight, who played Dennis on Jurassic Park, lost 117 pounds by walking and controlling his portions/calories instead of opting for gastric bypass.

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nenpd TIL Al Capone was the first person to open a soup kitchen to feed the poor during the Depression. At a time of 25 percent unemployment, Capone's kitchens served three meals a day to ensure that everyone who had lost a job could get a meal. Soon, every city and town had a soup kitchen.
ZpEmo TIL that James Harrison, an Australian man, who saved over 2 million babies due to donating his blood. He was known as the "Man with the Golden Arm," because he had a rare antibody in his blood used to develop an injection (Anti-D) to prevent Rhesus disease.
xVGEg TIL that to avoid releasing the Watergate tapes to prosecutors, Nixon proposed that Democratic Senator John C. Stennis alone be able to listen to them. Stennis was both notoriously hard-of-hearing and heavily drugged after being shot earlier in the year. The offer was quickly rejected.
j61JX TIL that at the Confederacy’s surrender at Appomattox, a Seneca Indian (General Grant’s secretary), Lieutenant Colonel Ely Parker, wrote the terms of surrender
rxDw TIL that in 1964 civil rights activists spent the summer in Mississippi registering black voters. The resulting terror campaign against the activists included 35 shootings, 80 beatings, 30 bombings, and 35 church burnings. Several died. Over 1000 people were arrested.