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TIL in 1967, gay rights activist John Nichols appeared in an NBC documentary called The Homosexuals. He used the pseudonym "Warren Atkins". His father was an FBI agent and feared he would lose his security clearance if they found out his son was gay, to the point of threatening to kill him.

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9YGxr TIL that Benedict Cumberbatch, was kidnapped together with Denise Black and a mutual friend near Lake St. Lucia in South Africa by a gang of six men. By nightfall, he managed to persuade his abductors that they could get in trouble if they harmed him or his friends. The trio was then let go.
e0LP5 TIL in 1963 the US Atomic Energy Commission considered the possibility of excavating an alternate rout to the Suez Canal by blasting a path across Israel using 520 two-megaton nuclear bombs. Intended to be sea level with no locks, the greatest depth of excavation required would 1500 feet.
R5krw TIL while writing "The Grapes of Wrath", John Steinbeck borrowed from the notes of Sanora Babb without her knowledge. She was using the notes for her own book, which was then shelved by the publisher, and finally published in 2004
OyBa TIL There’s a 9 year old boy in the Philippines who started his own no-kill, non-profit animal shelter - the first of its kind on his island of Mindanao.
wLrM1 TIL that Benjamin Franklin became a vegetarian, in part because he could save half of what his brother paid him, to buy more books, he also considered the consumption of meat to be "unprovoked murder"