› added 9 years ago

274

TIL that Screamin’ Jay Hawkins had so many illegitimate offspring that a website has been set up to identify them all

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

gMVBD TIL During the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, to help USA/USSR relations, astronauts and cosmonauts played smuggled audio recordings of glasses clinking, laughter, and many female voices. Houston radioed to ask what’s going on. "Oh nothing,” they said. “We finished work, just having a party up here."
LQjgm TIL in 1948 a state of emergency was declared in the British colony of Malaya (now Malaysia) as Malayan rebels were attacking rubber plantations and mines. The insurgency was described as an 'emergency' because insurers would not have compensated plantation owners if it had been labelled a 'war'.
dnPE TIL Louis CK’s canceled show, “Lucky Louie” was met with deep criticism from the president of a religious organization. On a radio talk show with Louis, the man admitted to never having seen an episode of the show himself.
D1ZdJ TIL that the title of the Radiohead album "OK Computer" comes from a line in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "OK, computer, I want full manual control now." The song "Paranoid Android" refers to "Hitchhiker" character Marvin, the Paranoid Android.
D10PJ TIL that Robert Liston amputated a patient's leg so fast that he cut off his assistant's fingers and slashed through a spectator's coat. His patient and assistant died due to infection, and the spectator died due to shock, making this medical operation the only known one with a 300% mortality rate.