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TIL Michael Keaton's real name is Michael Douglas. When he moved to Los Angeles, there was already an actor named Michael Douglas, so Keaton flipped through a phone book until he saw the name Keaton and decided to make it his stage name.

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wLW8E TIL John Gavin, who played Samuel Loomis in the 1960 film "Psycho", was unable to reprise his role in "Psycho II" after being appointed U.S. Ambassador to Mexico on June 5, 1981, by President Ronald Reagan. Thus, his character was made a widow of Lila Loomis (played by Vera Miles) in the sequel.
oBy8A TIL that Stockbridge Police Chief William J. Obanhein, who in 1964 posed for Norman Rockwell famous Ruby Bridges painting "The Problem We All Live With", was surprisingly also the “Officer Obie” of Arlo Guthrie’s 1967 hit song “Alice’s Restaurant.”
oB8Ro TIL Newspeak from "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is based on an actual language proposal - Basic English, a proposed easy-to-learn version of English with only 850 core words.
OoV74 TIL it's unknown where the tomb of Archimedes is located today. The last known record of his tomb was in 75 BC, 137 years after Archimedes had died, when Cicero had found the tomb in a neglected condition and overgrown with bushes, and had the tomb cleaned up.
4kMQ5 TIL: the first dirty bomb was created and tested by the communist Red Guard for use against the PLA