› added 9 years ago

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TIL Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, was once in a plane crash in the desert in Syria. With two broken ribs, he repeatedly went back into the burning plane to evacuate passengers, then organized search teams to look for civilization.

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16W98 TIL that Hollywood's first Chinese-American film star Anna May Wong had to support herself by becoming an Australian vaudeville chanteuse, a British theatrical luminary and a B-film pulp diva because of the shortage of roles for Asian actors and Hollywood tending to cast white actors in those roles
DnVv TIL for 85 grand you can have a doctor snap your shin bones in half and extend the length of your legs
RwD1 TIL In 1999, two nine-year-old boys sued Nintendo because they claimed the Pokémon Trading Card Game caused their problematic gambling.
b9ERj TIL that the term "OK" achieved national prominence in 1840, when Democrats claimed during the election that it stood for "Old Kinderhook," a nickname for incumbent President Van Buren. In response, Whig opponents attributed OK ("Oll Korrect," or all correct) to the bad spelling of Andrew Jackson.
neARY TIL that around 6 million Polish citizens —nearly 21.4% of Poland's population at the time — died between 1939 and 1945 as a result of the German occupation of the country. It is estimated 90% of those deaths were non-military losses, i.e. murder.