› added 8 years ago

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TIL there used to be 8 ft. tall 300lb carnivorous flightless birds in North and South America known colloquially as Terror Birds

XE7N6 TIL of James Lafayette, a former slave who acted as a double agent during the American Revolution. He was able to travel freely between American and British camps, and foiled Benedict Arnold’s plan to storm Yorktown. This led to the British surrender.
P8AZ TIL That Danny Trejo was “discovered” when he showed up on set to help a friend avoid using cocaine. He was offered a part as an extra if he could “act like a convict”, he said, “well, I’ll give it a shot.” (He had been incacerated at Soledad, San Quentin, Folsom, Vacaville, Susanville, and Sierra)
66Dl TIL Orville Redenbacher paid an advertising company $13,000 in 1970 to come up with a name for his popcorn company. Their advice was to call it “Orville Redenbacher”
5YEp9 TIL UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention was created to preserve the Temple of Abu Simbel in Egypt. After the Nasser Dam was built, the temple was briefly submerged underwater and a large effort was undertaken to relocate the mountain it was carved on and rebuild the temple piece by piece.
8emPG TIL that during the filming of Planet of the Apes in 1967, the cast self-segregated. Lead actor Charlton Heston said that the "chimpanzees ate with the chimpanzees, the gorillas ate with the gorillas, the orangutans ate with the orangutans, and the humans would eat off by themselves."