› added 8 years ago

93

TIL Gene Wilder became interested in acting at age 8 when his mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever and the doctor told him to “try and make her laugh”

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VMRYB TIL Eating a polar bear liver will kill you, because it is overloaded with vitamin A which is far too toxic for humans
oBgO8 TIL China's surveillance is named SKYNET
pY4k4 TIL that Mao Zedong rewarded factory workers with mangoes. Then he forced people to honor the fruit and started a short-lived, but intense, mango cult.
VPbQ TIL for several years, “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek’s “breakfast of champions” consisted of a Snickers and a Diet Pepsi. After his nutritionist reprimanded his routine, he switched his meals accordingly; he replaced them with Milky Way bars and Diet Cokes.
p5OQ TIL two Christian monks smuggled silkworms out of China in bamboo canes. Those silkworms were used to give the Byzantine Empire a trade monopoly in Europe, which became the foundation of their economy for the next 650 years