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TIL about Thomas Norris, a Navy SEAL who was awarded the Medal of Honor for rescuing two pilots during the Vietnam war. On a subsequent mission he was shot in the head and left for dead, but fellow SEAL Michael Thornton dragged him to a boat offshore and saved him. Thornton won the Medal of Honor.

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BrY7W TIL William Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller's father and patriarch of the incredibly wealthy family, was a con man and snake oil salesman, and intentionally lent money to impoverished farmers to take their land
OJlL TIL that in 2004 after the airing of South Park’s “Trapped in the Closet” Matt Stone and Trey Parker were followed and investigated by the Church of Scientology.
1aEkO TIL Juha Mieto of Finland lost the 15km cross county skiing event at the 1980 Olympics by 1/100 of a second. After this event the International Ski Federation changed its rules to round times to the nearest tenth of a second.
XnN8 TIL Shirō Ishii, director of the Japanese WWII Unit 731, was exonerated of all war crimes by the US government in exchange for data collected from human experimentation. US microbiologists called the data “absolutely invaluable” and “obtained fairly cheaply.”
E1ZXX TIL Guillermo del Toro talked with Universal to direct a remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon, tried pitching a version where the Creature ended up together with the female lead, the studio rejected the concept. However, The Shape of Water received a leading 13 nominations at the 90th Oscars.