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TIL of Mustapha Khaznadar, an ethnic Greek abducted and enslaved by the Ottomans as a child, who later went on to become Prime Minister of Tunisia. He was one of the most influential people in modern Tunisian history.

R6j6 TIL Tom Cruise sent letters and gifts to the boy who originally played the little boy in “Jerry Maguire” but was replaced by Jonathan Lipnicki, because he “just didn’t want that first actor to go to the movies, look at the screen and think he’d failed. I wanted him to love movies his entire life.”
NBm8 TIL that Tibetans have a gene mutation that may represent the strongest instance of documented evolution in humans.
1anJV TIL Burt Reynolds was considered for the role of Michael Corleone but Brando said he would walk if they cast him. “He is the epitome of something that makes me want to throw up. He is the epitome of everything that is disgusting about the thespian, he worships at the temple of his own narcissism.”
E0wP TIL that in the 80s, Soviet spies were suspected of planting bugs inside typewriters to monitor the electrical noise generated as the type ball rotated and pitched to strike the paper; the characteristics of those signals could determine which key was pressed.
Z8LW4 TIL that the concept for Spider-Man's black costume came from a fan named Randy Schueller, who was paid $220 in 1982 for the idea by then-Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter. Schueller conceived a black stealth version with a dark red spider chest emblem made by Reed Richards with unstable molecules.