› added 9 years ago

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TIL Luc Besson, who made Taken, Lucy, and The Fifth Element was in a relationship with a 15 year old girl that gave birth to his kid. She ended up playing Diva Plavalaguna in The Fifth Element.

R7D8 TIL that when challenged to use the word horticulture in a sentence, Dorothy Parker famously said: ‘you can lead a horticulture but you cannot make her think’
ZLY TIL that there is a mutated gene possessed by about half of the population that prevents a person from tasting the bitter-tasting chemical used to grow brusselsprouts. If a person does not possess this gene they can taste the chemical, thus making them much more likely to dislike brusselsprouts.
xGLo TIL that in 1972, President Richard Nixon called Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula before the Super Bowl and recommended he run a certain play. The week prior, he reportedly did the same thing with the Washington Redskins. Both teams ran the plays he suggested; both plays failed. Both teams lost.
gDyD TIL for over 200 years, Martha’s Vineyard had a very high percentage of deaf citizens due to the founder effect. Virtually everyone was fluent in sign language and deafness was not a social barrier. Martha’s Vineyard sign language went extinct in 1952.
VB5lQ TIL that the Pu Pu Platter was originally Hawaiian. The large plate of Hawaiian appetizers reached mainland US by 1934, and it was popularized during the Tiki bar craze of the '50s/'60s. The earliest known example of an American-Chinese restaurant serving a Pu Pu Platter wasn't until 1969.