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TIL Sean Connery was originally offered the role of Gandalf in the Lord Of The Rings films. He was offered $6 million per movie and a 15% stake in the box office profits. He instead declined the role stating he “never understood the script”. He would have made nearly $450 million had he accepted.

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16xjW TIL Bees could see the color difference between two pieces of “white” paper. Researchers used zinc white for one paper and lead white for the other, and although these look exactly the same to us, the bee could easily distinguish them, because they reflect a different amount in the ultraviolet
XEP0X TIL about a 250 year old violin valued at $100k that was left at a bar by accident. The bar used it for a fiddle contest and the winner got to keep the violin. That winner pawned it for $600. The violin was then miraculously found abandoned in an alley and returned to its rightful owner.
wLGnP TIL that a man, Joaquin Garcia, skipped work for six years and nobody noticed until he won an award for twenty years of loyal service. During the six years he quietly collected a $41,500 annual salary from his local government without showing up for work.
X07kj TIL the Black Death contributed greatly to the rise of the British Pub and pub culture. Thanks to the plague, scarcity of labor greatly improved the standard of living for peasants, who in turn spent their extra money on beer.
p8Gle TIL that Navy Seals who carried out the Bin Laden kill mission, forgot to bring a tape measure and had to measure Laden's height by making a six feet tall Seal lie down next to Laden's corpse