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TIL Dominik Hašek, one of the best NHL goaltenders of all time, was drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks in 1983. Because Hašek was from Czechoslovakia and behind the Iron Curtain, he did not know he was drafted by Chicago until several months later.

Y79lA TIL about the spintria, or spintriae in plural, a Roman-era token with a numeral on one side and on the other side, the image of a couple having sex. Each numbered coin had a different sex position. Historians don’t know what spintriae were for but have suggested they were used as brothel passes.
W74y8 TIL The song "Don't You Forget About Me" was offered to several artists, who passed, including Billy Idol and Bryan Ferry. Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde loved it, but was pregnant at the time, so she convinced then husband Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, who had also passed on it, to reconsider.
4XBDa TIL the whitewashed village of Juzcar, Spain used 4,000 liters of paint to turn the entire village blue for the release of Smurfs (2011). After the movie had been released, residents voted to keep it blue as it had helped increase tourism.
N7rE6 TIL that 90% of "dead" cell phone batteries returned to the manufacturer are repaired and resold.
W7Ned TIL Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote that the word Al-Qaeda should be translated as "the database", because it originally referred to the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen militants who were recruited and trained with CIA help to defeat the Russians