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TIL three "spec scripts" -- an unsolicited screenplay written in hopes it will be eventually purchased by a film studio -- have gone on to win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay: Thelma & Louise (1990), Good Will Hunting (1994), and American Beauty (1998).

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8aMMb TIL that the author of the original Bambi story wrote a fictional pornographic autobiography of a child prostitute in Vienna that was so period accurate that literature scholars debated for decades as to whether it was a true story for decades.
epyxL TIL Great Britain accidentally adopted a de facto gold standard in 1717 when Sir Isaac Newton, then-master of the Royal Mint, set the exchange rate of silver to gold too low, thus causing silver coins to go out of circulation.
kOGoE TIL Hans Jørgen Olsen, a 12-year-old Norwegian boy, saved himself and his sister from a moose attack using skills he picked up playing the online role playing game World of Warcraft.
v14Y7 TIL that Israel's flag carrier El Al is the only commercial airline to equip its planes with missile defense systems to protect its planes against surface-to-air missiles
Wk7Ao TIL Thomas Jefferson believed Jesus's teachings were "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man," but that they had been appropriated by his followers, resulting in a Bible that contained both "diamonds of wisdom" and the "dung" of ancient political agendas.