› added 6 years ago

92

Today I Learned John Wayne likely died from cancer caused by radiation poisoning. 90 other cast and crew also developed cancers after shooting The Conqueror downwind from recent US government nuclear weapons tests.

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b9d9a TIL that the Italian-American Civil Rights League was founded by the mafia to improve the image of mobsters. They forced the producer of the The Godfather to remove all references to the word 'mafia' from the screenplay even though the novel repeatedly uses the word.
NY16 TIL that, during a hostage crisis in 1985, Russian special forces took the kidnappers’ relatives as hostages, dismembered them and sent their body parts to the kidnappers as a negotiation/intimidation trick.
1DMP TIL that in 1994, a Boy Scout named David Hahn created a nuclear breeder reactor for his Eagle Scout project. It emitted 1000 times the natural background radiation and had to be confiscated by the government.
Qw7X TIL rats like to be tickled. However their vocalizations in response that resemble laughter fall in a range between 20-100khz which is outside the range of human hearing.
7rnkO TIL that because of a deal to buy the rights to Peppa the Pig, toymaker Hasbro now owns Death Row Records.