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TIL when Japanese pole vaulters Shuhei Nishida and Sueo Oe tied for silver at the 1936 Olympics they refused a tie-breaker. The silver was arbitrarily awarded to Nishida. They had their medals cut in half and then welded together so they each had one "friendship medal" of half silver, half bronze.

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R5l4w TIL That avant-garde British pop band "Art of Noise" takes it's name from a 1913 Futurist manifesto, called "The Art of Noise" - Which argues that the modern human ear has grown accustom to industrial noise, and now will seek more exciting sounds in music to combat this.
mx94E TIL that Die Hard, much debated over whether or not it is a Christmas film, was first released to cinemas in the middle of July 1988. Its distributor, 20th Century Fox, had greenlit the screenplay in June 1987 because they needed a summer blockbuster for the following year.
YVVx TIL Nixon’s family was poor. They couldn’t afford lavish vacations. And there weren’t that many national parks. So he corrected that by creating the EPA.
mxWVx TIL Washington is the first state to allow the composting of human remains. The law allows organic reduction using wood chips & straw, or alkaline hydrolysis aka liquid cremation. Tests of donated bodies resulted in rich, odorless soil passing all federal & state safety guidelines.
GYly1 TIL of Baby Nancy, a girl who died shortly after birth. Her father, an officer on the USS Utah, brought her ashes aboard with the plan to bury her at sea. During the Japanese attack, he escaped the ship but could not rescue Nancy's ashes, and they are still in his locker to this day.