TIL that the original Leisure Suit Larry DOS game from 1987 verified your age by quizzing you on 1980s pop culture. If you failed twice, the game refused to start. [source, comments]

TIL that when Farscape aired in 1999 it was one of the most expensive TV shows ever made outside the US. It was filmed entirely in Australia and featured puppetry from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. [source, comments]

TIL a woman who slashed Leonardo DiCaprio's face and neck with a broken bottle at a Hollywood party in 2005 was sentenced to two years in prison. She reportedly snuck into the party and attacked the actor after mistaking him for an ex-boyfriend. DiCaprio's injuries required 17 stitches. [source, comments]

TIL Michael Keaton's real name is Michael Douglas [source, comments]

TIL that only 2 people have voluntarily refused a Nobel Prize. Jean-Paul Sartre, who declined all official awards, did not accept the 1964 literature prize. And Le Duc Tho who did not accept the 1974 peace prize (shared with Henry Kissinger) because “peace has not yet been established” in Vietnam [source, comments]

TIL about William Astor Chanler: a member of the aristocratic Astor family who mapped East Africa, almost overthrew the Venezuelan government, fought in the Libyan, Somalian and Cuban wars of independence, served in Congress and later in life became a rabid antisemite. [source, comments]

TIL that 1 out of every 37 babies born in the US are conceived with IVF -- far more common than I would have expected. Highest is in Washington D.C., where 1 in 14 babies used IVF. [source, comments]

TIL in 2020, Emerson Elementary School in California was charged $250 by a licensing firm because the PTA showed a DVD of "The Lion King" during a Parents' Night Out event, and the school did not have a public performance license to show the film outside the home. Disney later apologized to the PTA. [source, comments]

TIL that Switzerland didn’t join the United Nations until 2002 because of fears that its status as a neutral country would be tainted [source, comments]

TIL that Starbucks holds almost $2 billion in the form of money people keep in the app or gift cards; they make 100s of millions of dollars per year off of customers not buying coffee [source, comments]

TIL in the 18th and 19th centuries it was very common to get married on Christmas day as it was the only day they could get off work, with some churches even holding group weddings [source, comments]

TIL after his mothers death Michael Caine found out he had a long lost half brother that lived in a mental hospital whom no one in his family knew about. [source, comments]

TIL that Japanese students learn the first 9 digits of pi with the phrase "an obstetrician faces towards a foreign country,” which, when translated directly into Japanese, means 3.14159265 [source, comments]

TIL that the largest single mass lynching in American history was that of 11 Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891 [source, comments]

TIL about Rhizanthella gardneri, the orchid that flowers entirely beneath the soil surface, with its blooms never emerging above ground [source, comments]

TIL that in 1780, an enslaved woman known as Mum Bet overheard the newly-enacted Massachusetts Constitution being read out, which said "all men are born free and equal". She sued her master as a result. The court ruled this meant slavery was now illegal and awarded her 30 shillings in compensation. [source, comments]

TIL Bruce Lee was so dedicated in his craft as an actor and martial arts star that he had an operation to remove the sweat glands from his armpits because he believed underarm sweat looked unphotogenic on film. [source, comments]

TIL that a British newspaper suggested that Princess Diana's lover, James Hewitt, should be prosecuted under the Treason Act of 1351, which made it a crime to "violate the wife of the Heir" [source, comments]

TIL heroin and opium were widely used by US servicemen in Vietnam war, partly to help them tolerate the challenges of the war environment. ~43% of US servicemen who served in Vietnam had used heroin/opium at least once and half of those are thought to be dependent on them at one point (1974 study). [source, comments]

TIL that the inventor of the first chatbot later became an outspoken critic of AI and warned that AI should never be humanized. [source, comments]