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TIL Mel Brooks won an Oscar for making fun of his own movie. After watching an abstract animated short Brooks commissioned his own short and improvised a commentary to make The Critic (1963) which won Brooks his first Oscar.

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d8elK TIL A Chinese psychiatrist was giving kids with "internet addiction" electro-shock treatment and psychiatric drugs in prison like conditions. The Chinese World of Warcraft community were outraged and started an online campaign to have him discredited.
mxawR TIL the young of Rhamphorhynchus and other pterosaurs are called “flaplings.”
W7jE4 TIL Ford Motor Company made experimental helmets for soldiers in WW1. The Model No. 8 helmet made between 1917 and 1918 weight 3 lbs and looked like a knight helmet.
wo5V6 TIL That the Congo River is the deepest in the world at 729ft (220m) and it’s basin is half the size of the US. (1.5mil sq miles or 4mil sq km.)
7DAM TIL that US Marines murdered 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in response to an IED that killed a Marine in Haditha, Iraq. The Marine Corps reported that 15 civilians were killed by the IED, and 8 ‘insurgents’ were killed in response. Evidence showed this report to be false.