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TIL Steven Spielberg wanted to direct a James Bond film, but he was turned down by the franchise’s owners. When he told his friend George Lucas, Lucas said he had a film “just like James Bond but even better.” It was a story about an archaeologist named Indiana.

5VOKp TIL about Henry Cotton, an asylum director who believed that all insanity was caused by sepsis in other parts poisoning the brain, leading to widespread amputation of his patients' colons, teeth, reproductive organs, and even stomachs in order to "cure" them, with as many as 45% dying as a result
KLR9 TIL that William Edmondson, the son of freed slaves, took up sculpting at age 55 after seeing a vision from God. He used found materials and made his own tools out of railroad spikes. Eight years later he was the first Black artist to have a one-man show at MoMA.
XEnZX TIL Irish Guardsman Edward Charlton was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for using a .30 cal machine gun to stop a numerically superior German force from overrunning his unit’s position. Ironically, many accounts of his actions came from the opposing Germans.
Z8JRv TIL The intelligence of Manta Ray. Manta ray in distress 'asks' divers for help. The three-metre-wide gentle giant, affectionately named Freckles by local divers, approached them and flipped over in the water to show them her problem – hooks embedded under her right eye.
1vOr TIL in 2010, that Senator Roy Ashburn, who had voted “anti-gay” for all eight years that he was in office, was arrested on a DUI while leaving a bar with another man and now openly admits to being gay.