› added 9 months ago

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TIL UK's highest-paid entertainer in WW2, George Formby, went to Normandy after the landings, & gave 9 shows to frontline troops who’d held out for 56 days without relief, his audience in foxholes. He also crawled through trenches to tell jokes when the enemy was too close for a show.

wNO8 TIL in 1983, 50 corporations controlled most of the American media, including magazines, books, music, news feeds, newspapers, movies, radio and television. By 1992 that number had dropped by half. By 2000, six corporations had ownership of most media, and today five dominate the industry.
0dWEA TIL that Shakespeare's last residence in Stratford-upon-Avon was demolished in 1759 by its owner, Francis Gastrell, because he was tired of tourists.
E7Mx TIL that when the Duke of Wellington attended a party in Vienna, some French officers turned away from the conqueror of Napoleon. When a woman apologized for their rudeness, Wellington replied “I have seen their backs before, madam.”
4X18a TIL that in 1860, Mississippi was by far the richest state in the union. So much wealth was being produced in the state from cotton that there were more millionaires per capita in Mississippi than in any other state in the US.
A4pg TIL that the 19th century London campaign for sanitary reform and delivering clean water was opposed by critics as “a deduction from the charms of freedom.” The Times daily argued it was preferable to “take a chance with cholera than be bullied into health.”