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TIL that Louis Nathaniel de Rothschild was arrested by the Nazis in 1938, he was released only after lengthy negotiations between the family and the Nazis and upon payment of $21,000,000($387,575,106.38), believed to have been the largest ransom payment in history for any individual.

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OoxAe TIL NASA firefighters used military armored personnel carriers during every space shuttle launch in case they needed to rescue astronauts at the launch site.
wLN5o TIL Joseph Conrad, who is regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language, was born in Poland and did not speak English fluently until his twenties.
Y7DQx TIL Molly Ringwald turned down the lead in Pretty Woman because she felt that the story was icky.
d8vGj TIL: The Cheka, the soviet secret police would skin people alive, have people tied to planks and then pushed slowly into furnaces or tanks of boiling water, children as young as 8 would be executed.
R7EZ4 TIL The lead singer of the Offspring came up with the lyrics to "Come Out and Play" (Gotta Keep'em Separated) while trying to cool liquids in his grad school lab