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TIL Director James Cameron fell ill while in Rome during the release of Piranha II: The Spawning and had a dream about a metallic torso dragging itself from an explosion while holding kitchen knives. When Cameron returned to California, he wrote a draft for The Terminator.

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eQv4 TIL a Texas dad engaged in a 3-hour armed standoff with police while trying to prevent doctors from pulling the plug on his brain-dead son. The son eventually came out of his coma and recovered. Dad was charged for the incident, but the charges were later reduced.
j6JLv TIL in the 1920s, Coco Chanel accidentally got a tan, and helped inspire the trend of sunbathing. Soon "sunlight therapy" was prescribed for almost every ailment from fatigue to tuberculosis. Before this, tanned skin was associated with the lower classes who work outside, and fair skin was revered.
W74nd Today I learned about the Girardoni air rifle; a rifle developed in 1779 that was capable of effectively shooting up to 125 meters with a muzzle velocity of 600 fps, it had a 20 round magazine and an internal air reservoir that was good for up to 30 shots before needing to be refilled.
pYRKO TIL that a component of the immune system is defensins ('defense' + '-in', which is the suffix for anything protein related). They are proteins with antimicrobial properties and can kill microbes directly, which can be an alternative for antibiotics.
gM9wb TIL because the producers of The Lord of the Rings had difficulty finding men with horseback riding experience to play the extra soldiers, many of the "Riders of Rohan" were actually women.