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TIL the 'Fake Shemp' - using one actor to fill in for another - is now prohibited by Screen Actors Guild rules, as a result of a lawsuit filed by Crispin Glover over his replacement in Back to the Future II

QJY0k TIL that oversimplifying a fictional character over the course of a show's run is called Flanderization, after Ned Flanders of The Simpsons.
v1x9r TIL When Time magazine named China's Deng Xiaoping as 1985 Man of the Year, it prompted Taiwanese leader Chiang Ching-Kuo to quicken the pace of Taiwan's democratization. Deng invited Chiang to meet with him but he declined, on the grounds that he did not believe in the Communist Party of China
awm7y TIL about the Gaesatae, a group of Gaulish mercenaries hired to fight the Romans in 225 BC. The Gaesatae fought naked to intimidate their foes, but their small shields offered little protection against Roman javelins, and they were driven back.
6Eod7 TIL the first named European to discover America was Leif Erikson in the year 1000 near modern-day Newfoundland, but according to his own record when he first made landfall he rescued two unnamed shipwrecked men. This makes those two men the first known Europeans to ever make landfall in America
GV84 TIL A robbery suspect fled into a darkened movie theater to escape pursuing police. He became so engrossed in the movie playing on screen, Robocop, that he failed to notice that police had evacuated all other patrons from the theater. When the lights came on he was taken into custody.