› added 9 years ago

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TIL that Charles Martinet, the voice of Nintendo’s Mario, crashed an audition uninvited and was told to make up a voice for an Italian plumber from Brooklyn. He talked until the audition tape ran out and was immediately given the job.

Z8y1o TIL Yo-Yo Ma's relative hid the Ma family genealogy in the wall of their home during the Cultural Revolution. It was uncovered that his paternal ancestry traces back eighteen generations to the year 1217.
7PDP TIL the German government refuses to recognize Scientology as a religion. The organization has officially been labelled an ‘abusive business masquerading as a religion’.
86OL TIL Rosa Parks was not the first black person to be arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat, and far from being a diminutive seamstress, Parks was a political organizer and activist, a member of the Montgomery Voters League and secretary of the local chapter of the NAACP
XErwQ TIL of submarine Commander Eugene Fluckey, credited with the most tonnage sunk in WWII, incl. a Carrier and leading men on land to blow up a train. He got 4 Navy Crosses, the Medal of Honor, his boat got several Presidential Unit citations and not one of his men got a Purple Heart.
b6e64 TIL: Götz von Berlichingen was a German mercenary/"Robin Hood". He lost his right arm in 1504 and had a blacksmith make an iron hand with movable fingers to hold a sword could hold a pen. In 1799, Goethe wrote a biography and included the first use of "kiss my a**". (a plaque commemorates this).