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TIL Towel Day is a tribute to Douglas Adams during which fans of Adams carry around a towel all day. Towel Day takes place on May 25th

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nWEZG TIL Wilt Chamberlain is the reason for players to stay behind the foul line when shooting a free throw. In college, thanks to his 7’ height, 7’8” wingspan, and 50” vertical, he would start from top of the key, leap before the foul line, and dunk the ball before he touched the ground in the lane.
j6eyn TIL the first WrestleMania included Liberace as a timekeeper, Billy Martin as a ring announcer, and Muhammad Ali as a referee.
womZ1 TIL in the 1980s, NASA had a 1-900 number which charged $2 for the first minute and $.45 for each additional minute. It allowed callers to listen in on a mission status report and mid-flight press conferences, and horrifyingly, thousands of them heard the Challenger explosion in real time.
7w0b TIL When Lena Horne entertained troops during WWII for the USO, German POW’s were given front row seats while black servicemen were relegated to the back of the theater. She walked off the stage to the row where the black troops were seated and performed with the Germans behind her.
14e7 TIL Nazi Germany produced Chlorine Trifluoride for use as a dual purpose incendiary and poison gas in WW2. ClF3 causes almost anything to spontaneously explode on contact, including wood, concrete, sand, gravel, glass, asbestos, water, and of course flesh.