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TIL that the company that makes the Etch a Sketch was on the verge of bankruptcy when it agreed to let its drawing toy be featured in Toy Story 2. Although the scene featuring an Etch a Sketch was only 12 seconds long, it resulted in a 20 percent sales bump that helped to save the company.

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X015r TIL of a plane who made a forced landing on a Greenland ice cap in Nov. 1942. In attempting their rescue, 6 more planes either also stranded or crashed and it would take the survivors 5 and a half months of sheltering on the glacier until they were all rescued.
5Y7ap TIL that blue whale's heart beats at 8/10 bpm and is about 1.5 meters long, 1 meters wide, and 1.5 meters tall. It weighs about 180 kg and its heartbeat can be heard from over 2 miles away
KgX4 TIL: In 1930, Babe Ruth signed a contract for a record breaking $80,000. He was asked by a reporter what he thought of his yearly salary being more than President Hoover’s $75,000. His response: “I know, but I had a better year than Hoover.”
kXAW TIL Christopher Columbus made the natives each bring him a specified amount of gold every three months. Those who didn’t collect enough gold in time had their hands amputated and were left to bleed to death.
WkvXA TIL a Christian saint offered himself as a human sacrifice and was buried alive. He was later dug up and found to be still alive, but he uttered such words describing what of the afterlife he had seen and how it involved no heaven or hell, that he was ordered to be covered up again.