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TIL that Bolaji Badejo, a 6 foot 10 Nigerian visual artist, played the original Alien (1979)’s xenomorph. His height and slender body convinced Ridley Scott that he was a perfect choice for the villain. He also died from sickle cell disease at age 39.

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N7vgM TIL of the ecocide at Chaco Canyon. When the Anasazis arrived at Chaco Canyon, it was a dense woodlands, but after years of deforestation, harmful farming practices, and finally a drought, the area is now a desert. Occupation there only lasted around 200 years.
JYvBV TIL a century after the bloody and violent Hatfield–McCoy feud in West Virginia/Kentucky, the two families faced off again on the game show "Family Fued" in 1979. The teams received a mannequin for every match they won as the producers thought it would be funny to “litter the stage with bodies”.
vPV1D TIL Ever since she was 12, Ellen Degeneres' idol has been Dian Fossey after seeing her hold a gorilla in 1970 National Geographic. Fifty years later, Ellen set up the $15 million "Ellen DeGeneres Campus" at Virunga Massif for gorilla conservation and research
XEyd8 TIL Jackie Chan is actually a trained opera singer and has recorded over 20 albums with over 100 songs in over 5 different languages. In the 80’s, he would sing the theme songs to his films over the closing credits. In 1984, he won the Best Foreign Singer Award in Japan
69M9l TIL the Celilo Falls on the Colombia River was one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in North America and a major fishing and trading hub for many Native American tribes. In 1957, the newly-built Dalles Dam submerged the falls along with many settlements which had to be relocated.