› added 5 months ago

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TIL when Pope Francis announced his visit to Belgium in 2023, residents of Father Damien's birth town were upset they weren't included in his visit because 30 years prior, Pope John-Paul II promised to visit them but cancelled last minute after he broke his femur by slipping in the papal bathtub.

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Eg4aP TIL Birds can eat rice safely, they don't explode and die. It was a 1996 urban legend that has been spread every wedding season.
wLeO1 TIL nowhere in the New Testament does it state how many Wise Men there were, despite traditions widely referring to three.
gMPxy TIL Larry Fine of the Three Stooges burned his arm with acid as a child. His parents gave him violin lessons to strengthen the damaged nerves. He became so proficient on the violin that his parents planned to send him to a European music conservatory but the plan was thwarted by World War I.
R7RZw TIL that a cattle farmer, while clearing land on his Texas ranch, wrote his name in letters a kilometer tall, producing the world’s largest signature. It lies on major flight paths into Houston and NASA uses it to evaluate satellite imagery
OoxMY TIL The same week Anne Heche was cast in her first starring role Touchstone Pictures fired her after she made a red carpet appearance on the arm of Ellen DeGeneres, who she'd met just days earlier. Harrison Ford used his influence to get her rehired, but the damage to her career was already done.