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TIL that in 2002, a Marvel comics writer based an alternate version of Nick Fury on Samuel L Jackson, using his image without permission. Jackson discovered this and nearly took legal action. Marvel offered to cast him as Fury if the character was ever in a movie. Jackson took the deal.

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m1k1o TIL of engineer and chemist Thomas Midgley Jr., who contracted polio at 51. He devised a system of ropes and pulleys for his bed, but became entangled and died of strangulation. He also invented chlorofluorocarbons, which created a hole in the ozone layer, and leaded gasoline.
9YLR7 TIL Rudolf Mößbauer, age 32, won the 1961 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of the Mößbauer effect named after him. During the Cold War he was one of the first to organize Seminars with Soviet physicists, long before this became feasible for US colleagues
4XWmo TIL that North Korea kidnapped a South Korean director and actor and forced them to make films for them. They eventually claimed asylum at the US embassy and moved to the US.
kXZ5 TIL that leakage from phosphorous bombs dumped into the Baltic sea post-WWII can form pieces that look similar to natural amber deposits. These are sometimes picked up by beachcombers, resulting in serious injury when they eventually ignite.
8elO8 TIL Doug Henning, the New Age illusionist from the 70s, was diagnosed with liver cancer. Despite graduating with honors with a degree in science and psychology, he believed that meditation and a diet of nuts and berries would save him. He was dead within 6 months, at the age of 52.