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TIL William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy shared a scene in a 1964 episode of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." - and both had forgotten by the time they first met on the set of Star Trek.

46d6 TIL Isaac Newton stuck a needle in his eye, placing pressure on the eyeball, to study the human eye as a lens and how it perceives color.
OoeXY TIL of Michael Durant, who was taken prisoner in Mogadishu in 1993. He was tortured for 11 days until he heard a helicopter playing “Hell’s Bells” by AC/DC. His superiors knew it was his favorite song, so they had rigged a helicopter with a loudspeaker and flown over the city looking for him.
D1W9r TIL The creator of Clarissa Explains It All had a strict rule about not allowing the color purple on set, requiring parts of the set to be repainted. When asked about this rule, he revealed that it was completely arbitrary, only existing to make him seem more assertive as someone new in the business
M7QLm TIL the US didn’t have the $15m to pay France for Louisiana, so they financed it through a banks in London. Napoleon had made the deal with the US to fund his war against Great Britain and Europe. Britain allowed this deal to go through only because they didn’t want France to have their NA territory
4X51o TIL of Charles Dickinson West who was hired by the Empire of Japan in 1882 to teach steam engine mechanics & mechanical engineering at Tokyo University. He assisted in the development of the Imperial Japanese Navy & was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by Emperor Meiji in 1905.