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TIL Will Smith was offered the role in The Matrix but turned down the role of Neo to make Wild Wild West, because of skepticism over the film's ambitious bullet time special effects. Nicolas Cage, Brad Pitt , Val Kilmer, Leonardo DiCaprio Johnny Depp also turned down the part.

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Vy6p TIL a mule is not just the offspring of a donkey and a horse, but more specifically the offspring of a MALE donkey and a FEMALE horse. The other way around is much rarer: a ‘Hinny’
v1be7 TIL of patient AB - "the first and only instance in which hallucinatory voices sought to reassure the patient, offered her a specific diagnosis, directed her to the hospital, expressed pleasure that she was well again, bid her farewell, and thereafter disappeared."
J1bYQ TIL that King Louis IX was captured and imprisoned for six weeks in Egypt in 1250 during the Seventh Crusade. He was ransomed for the equivalent of one-third of France’s GDP, while nearly all of his army was massacred. 20 years later, he died in Tunisia while on another crusade.
wLrLo TIL The design of The Simpsons character Dr. Nick Rivera is based somewhat on Klasky Csupo cofounder Gábor Csupó, though the show's animators mistakenly believed Hank Azaria, was impersonating Csupó when Azaria says the voice was actually a "bad" imitation of Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy.
WkKgd TIL an epidemic in 1872 affecting horses was a key moment in the animal rights movement as the founder of the ASPCA would stand in the street to block horse-drawn trolleys to insist that sick horses be returned to the stables instead of being worked to death