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TIL that The Beatles approached Stanley Kubrick to direct an adaptation of “The Lord of the Rings” in which they would star, and it was stopped by Tolkien himself

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bGR0 TIL a programmer built scripts for every activity in his job that would cost him more than 90 seconds
4XKYo TIL about an Israeli Mossad agent who infiltrated the Syrian government, convinced the Syrian army to plant trees in strategical spots across the border for the fictitious purpose of shading for the soldiers, which were later used as aerial targeting markers for the IDF during the Six-Day War.
e1dn TIL that when the US government renamed a fish species from ‘slimehead’ to 'orange roughy’ it went from being relatively unknown, to becoming a threatened species within a decade.
x6lo7 TIL Alan Pinkerton fled to America for being associated with workers rights groups in Scotland. He aided John Brown, opposed slavery, and protected Lincoln from assassination plots. However, The Pinkertons would become most infamous for their violence and subterfuge of striking workers.
BrOjx TIL the word "penguin" is of Welsh origin, and came into use as a synonym for the great auk, another flightless bird which is not closely related to penguins.