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TIL: Isa Hayes, who was one of the marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima, played himself in the movie The Sands of Iwo Jima starring John Wayne.

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DmWg TIL in 1941 the world’s largest seed bank (created by botanist Nikolai Vavilov) was housed in Leningrad. As the Germans surrounded the city forcing mass starvation, Vavilov’s scientists refused to eat from the collection, slowly dying of hunger as they maintained 16 rooms of edible plants.
KXXB TIL that The Hobbit (1977) was animated by Topcraft Studio, which eventually dissolved and became Studio Ghibli.
b0Wa TIL the doctor that proposed medical professionals should wash their hands before handling patients was so mocked by his peers that he suffered from a nervous breakdown. He was committed to a mental institution, dying from a septic wound that was not treated properly.
epllJ TIL there were ticket scalpers for gladiator fights in Ancient Rome. Gladiators like Hermes were known to draw the largest crowds and brought in high profits for scalpers due to demand
rNnpo TIL the largest battle of the American Revolution was not fought in the American colonies or by American revolutionaries. It was the Great Siege of Gibraltar, in which Spain unsuccessfully tried to take advantage of the war overseas to reclaim Gibraltar from Britain.