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TIL Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, was the first person to be “Buried in space”. On April 21, 1997, his ashes were brought to the Canary Islands and loaded aboard the Pegasus-XL and launched out of the rocket.

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xQG0 TIL that Star Wars is mostly unknown in China. Few saw Episodes 4-6 in theaters; Episodes 1-3 are better known. Disney had to educate fans about the franchise when promoting The Force Awakens. “Marvel characters are the American action heroes to a whole generation of millions of Chinese”, instead.
m1XGp TIL Industrial Biotest Labs (IBT) conducted almost 1/3rd of all safety testing for chemicals and drugs in the US from the 1950s to 70s. It was later was discovered that IBT had been falsifying data amd mislead federal authorities on the safety of many commercial products for approval.
9M0Q TIL that there is a legend that the Ottoman Sultan intended to send £10,000 to Ireland to aid in the Starvation, but was stopped by Queen Victoria who had only sent £2000. Instead he sent £1000 and three ships full of food. A letter of thanks from the Irish is in the Ottoman Archives.
D1kjV TIL, medieval surgeons in England used complicated surgeries learnt from the Arabs including jaw-reconstruction
nevbP TIL of the World’s Scariest Haunted House, located in San Diego, California. It has a waiting list of 24,000 people, requires a full evaluation beforehand, waterboards those going through, is completely free of charge, and lasts for eight hours (but nobody has lasted more than 6).