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TIL that Tchaikovsky's 1892 'The Nutcracker' ballet was based upon Alexander Dumas' 1844 'The Story of a Nutcracker' ('Histoire d'un casse-noisette' which was in turn based upon the original 1816 short story 'The Nutcracker and the Mouse King' by Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffmann.

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ewQ4 TIL that Calvin Graham enlisted in the Navy in 1942 at age 12. He shipped out and became the youngest decorated veteran, earning the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. His mom saw him in a newsreel and notified the Navy who then threw him in the brig, stripped him of his medals and revoked his benefits.
E1gL0 TIL William Shatner sold his kidney stone for US$25,000, which paid for the building of a house by Habitat for Humanity.
p84VG TIL the main guy behind creating U.S. National Parks—John Muir—may have never had a deep love of nature had he not suffered a major eye injury while working as a mechanic: “I bade adieu to all my mechanical inventions, determined to devote the rest of my life to the study of the inventions of God”
XQaQ TIL Men in California are legally and financially responsible, by law, for any children their wife bears through infidelity.
jOmR TIL a group of panda is called an Embarrassment.