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TIL on February 5, 1919, Hollywood heavyweights Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith joined forces to create their own film studio, which they called the United Artists Corporation.

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DbVJ TIL Nelson Mandela phoned Richard Branson asking for Bransons help as a large health club chain needed rescuing or thousands of jobs would be lost. Today, Virgin Active South Africa has 133 locations. More clubs than any other country.
neNMP TIL Amelia Earhart likely survived and sent distress signals for weeks after disappearing, but the authorities immediately presumed all signals to be hoaxes with no further investigation
JYdL8 TIL in 1994, radio shock jock Howard Stern talked a suicidal caller out of jumping off the George Washington Bridge in New York. He was live on air conversing and making jokes with him until he was able to be restrained and sent to a hospital.
X0rEj TIL of Amtor. Edgar Rice Burroughs (author of Tarzan) also wrote a 5-book series set on Venus, which was imagined as a water world. The main character, a human astronaut, meets princesses, becomes a pirate twice in the series, and is crowned a prince after the overthrow of a kingdom.
YpeGZ TIL each year U of Chicago students embark on a scavenger hunt. The 1999 list included a French Canadian, Fisher Price Baby's First Flamethrower, 5 Mensa membership cards and a nuclear reactor. Justin Kasper and Fred Niell built a plutonium-producing reactor in a single day to get 2nd place