› added 5 years ago

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TIL Ian Fleming took the name for his James Bond character from an ornithologist James Bond. He explained to the real Bond's wife he needed unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name. The real Bond did not learn of the identity theft until the early 1960s when the 007 books became popular.

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Eg8XW TIL: Cormac McCarthy's inspiration for The Road was when in El Paso, TX with his young son "McCarthy looked out the window late one night and imagined what the city might look like in fifty or one hundred years and saw: "fires up on the hill and everything being laid to waste"
nYO7 TIL Disneyworld has secret treasure hunts. You go to a little shop cart and get one of 5 treasure maps. You then search around Adventure land for hidden NFC readers that activate with your Passcard. One was in the gift shop and it activated a whole shipwreck show inside a fish tank!
bG47 TIL of an Australian man who has donated blood over 1100 times, and saved over two million babies. His blood contains a rare combination of antibodies that is used to treat Rhesus disease.
4kpJw TIL that Duracell was the first battery company to use a pink bunny mascot, until the Trademark lapsed and Energizer filed for it in 1988
neXd9 TIL that in 1938 early aviator Douglas Corrigan was denied permission to fly from New York to Ierland. Since he was denied he planned to fly to California instead. 28 hours later he arrived in Ireland, telling officials that he must have mistakenly gone the wrong way.