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TIL in 1958, Mao Zedong ordered the Chinese people to kill all the sparrows in the country to protect the rice crops. The effort backfired as, without the sparrows to eat insects, the locust population exploded and wiped out food crops, contributing to the starvation of tens of millions of people.

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yvLM TIL when Ellen Burstyn (the mother in The Exorcist) went to see the film in theatre, a woman fainted. Burstyn ran over to help her, but called for someone else to help when she realized the fainted woman would have a bad time waking up to Burstyn’s face.
Br0Yy TIL: Despite its popularity in 1939, The Wizard of Oz didn't make a profit until it was re-released ten years later.
NXXWb TIL that the Sesame Street song "Rubber Duckie" peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on September 26th, 1970. It also reached #10 in Australia.
OoxRa TIL the Renault 5 was designed by Michel Boué in his spare time, and when the Renault executives learned of Boué's work, they were so impressed that they approved it for formal development. However, Boué did not see the final product, having died of cancer several months before the 5's launch.
OGZda TIL Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) is considered by many to be the first computer programmer and her method describing an algorithm to compute Bernoulli numbers has been called the world's first computer program