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TIL that when cartoonist Tom Batiuk lost the ownership of his comic strip John Darling to his syndicate in 1990, he had the main character murdered with no warning. With the protagonist dead, the syndicate had the rights to an unusable property and the strip ended the next day.

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dDyk8 TIL that NASA's Gemini 7 space mission lasted for 14 days. After rendezvousing with Gemini 6 on the 11th day, the two astronauts had nothing to do other than read books in the very cramped cockpit. Frank Borman, the commander, said that the last three days were "bad".
ZeKR TIL “ArnoldC” is an imperative programming language where the basic keywords are replaced with quotes from different Arnold Schwarzenegger movies (Hello World code in comments).
BgNPW TIL Mark Twain was one of the first American writers to document native islanders surfing in Polynesia. In his 1872 travelogue, “Roughing It”, Twain describes watching it, and even attempts it himself. But only once.
dMa8 TIL Irish airline tycoon Michael O'Leary acquired a taxi license for his luxury Mercedes S500L so he could use Dublin’s bus lanes for his daily commute.
8abP4 TIL middle-aged marathon runners are faster than twentysomethings. It's not clear why this is, although the older runners do train slightly more.