› added 12 years ago

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TIL that Howard Hughes endowed $156 million to a gas-station owner for finding him on the side of the road and giving him a ride to Las Vegas.

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ROv6 TIL that in 1994, Disney purchased the film rights for a movie centered on the Hasbro toy Stretch Armstrong. Danny DeVito was offered and accepted the titular role, but only on the stipulation that there be no jokes regarding his height. The film was subsequently scrapped.
Ooole TIL when the HMS Sheffield and HMS Coventry were sunk by the Argentinian military during the Falklands war, the crew sang Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" whilst waiting for rescue- the song's line "worse things happen at sea, you know" being especially ironic.
Qv5M TIL The man who create the bear-proof suit also invented a fireproof paste, a light capable of seeing through walls, the Trojan Ballistics Suit of Armour, and has received the Ig Nobel Prize for Safety Engineering.
QNDgk TIL that a placebo can still work even when a subject knows it’s a placebo
woGY TIL Omar bin Laden (Osama’s son) was denied citizenship in Britain in 2007 because “Omar failed to provide his father’s permanent address”