› added 8 years ago

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TIL In 2006, 74 yr. old Luciano Pavarotti was asked to perform at Italy’s Winter Olympic’s opening ceremony. Later that year he was diagnosed with inoperable, stage 4, pancreatic cancer; however, he decided to perform anyways. It was his last performance.

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1b5X TIL in 1856 Sir Andrew Waugh calculated the height of Mt. Everest to be exactly 29,000ft. However, he published the calculation of 29,002ft. due to the fear that the former would seem like nothing more than a rounded estimate. This makes him the first person to put two feet on top of Mt. Everest.
4krxN TIL Tug of war was featured at the Summer Olympics 1900 to 1920.
xJ1k TIL during development of the Star Wars prequels, George Lucas was warned by his animation team that the character Jar Jar Binks came across poorly. Lucas responded by saying he specifically wanted to keep the character in to appeal to small children age 12 and younger
LkpBZ TIL that Mr. Dink's last name from the cartoon Doug represents his Dual Income, No Kids status, which is why he is often seen with "very expensive" gadgets all the time.
ljD1 TIL Iran has more cabinet members with PhDs from US Universities, than the US cabinet itself does