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TIL British actor Gareth Jones died of a heart attack while performing in a live televised play in 1958 – in which his character was scripted to have a heart attack. The rest of the cast improvised around his death and finished the play.

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VMx0D TIL That Martha 'Big Mouth' Raye so endeared herself to the US Military for her USO work she was made an honorary Lt. Colonel in the Army and Marines and was one of the only civilians to be made an honorary member of the US Army Special Forces.
XEaP6 TIL that live snails need their own train ticket, if you take one on a train in France. According to French law, when taking any animal under 6KG (~13lbs) one must pay 7 Euro (~$7.5) for the ride. Law requires you to stay with your snail and keep it and the other passengers safe for the whole ride.
ADXZl TIL When the Six Flags Over Texas theme park opened in 1961, it had a section dedicated to the Confederacy where actors would hunt through the crowd for Union "spies" and "execute" them by firing squad, and where boys and girls could sign up to defend the South as soldiers and nurses.
R55EQ TIL that during the Great Depression a businessman turned a poor Florida town into the richest US city per capita by convincing the populace to YOLO into Coca Cola stock, the value of which proceeded to appreciate vastly
BxBL TIL in 1968 a school teacher divided her class by eye color to teach them about discrimination. The kids got discriminatory pretty quickly.