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TIL that a BBC variety program called "the Black and White Minstrel Show" — featuring white people singing and dancing in blackface — was broadcast until the late 1970s. Watched by 12-16 million Britons every week, it won awards and made it onto screens in many other countries, including Australia.

XZgD TIL Gandhi refused treatment of his dying wife with antibiotics that would have saved her on religious grounds and then took quinine 6 weeks later to stave off malaria
X0nV8 TIL about Ina Benita, "the first Polish femme fatale", an interwar movie star that was believed dead after the Warsaw Uprising, but completely anonymously lived in the US until 1984. Her grandson only discovered this 30 years after her death. (translation from DE wiki due to depth)
yVWYX TIL Fred Crisman hoaxed a UFO sighting, created a secret society, hosted a conservative talk show, was an official suspect in the JFK assassination, and claimed to have battled non-human cave monsters in WW2.
PYJPJ TIL Tom Lester beat out 400 actors for the role of Eb on Green Acres, despite having no acting experience, because he was the only one auditioning who could actually milk a cow
b6MrN TIL Nolan Bushnell played Spacewar! in a computer lab in the 1960s. The only computers capable of running the game at the time cost more than $100,000. Bushnell decided he didn't need a computer and used affordable custom hardware to create "Computer Space" housed in a futuristic cabinet