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TIL when Gene Wilder was offered the role of Willy Wonka, he accepted on one condition: he'd enter with a limp, lose his cane and continue to limp, and then when he's found out, perform a somersault for the crowd, "Because from that time on, no one will know if I'm lying or telling the truth."

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yV7VV TIL: Petros, a wounded pelican adopted by the Greek island of Mykonos, warranted a court case for entrapment after he flew to another Island where locals wanted to keep him. Thanks to Petros there are now several pelicans living in Greece, though they aren't native.
OGMr6 TIL by passing a law requiring pharmacies to be owned by a licensed pharmacist, North Dakota has essentially done away with corporate chain pharmacies. Corporations that own pharmacies must be majority owned by licensed pharmacists.
L4WQ TIL Russell Crowe was once contacted by the FBI about Al Qaeda wanting to kidnap him to take “iconographic Americans out of the picture as a sort of cultural destabilisation plan.” Russel Crowe isn’t American though. He’s originally from New Zealand.
rax1 TIL 90% of the pumpkins grown in the U.S. are raised within a 90-mile radius of Peoria, Illinois
LAPv TIL that during the 1977 New York blackout, a number of looters stole DJ equipment from electronics stores and as a result, the hip hop genre, barely known outside of the Bronx at the time, grew at an astounding rate from 1977 onward.