› added 10 years ago

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TIL in 10th century lived Syrian poet who was attacking and rejecting Islamic (or any other religion) claims and could freely express his opinions in Arabic lands without fear of his life. In 2013, almost a thousand years after his death, a Jihadist group beheaded his statue

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0LOM TIL that in 1589 John Stubbs was sentenced by Queen Elizabeth to have his hand severed for seditious writing, and before the axe fell, he cried out, “My calamity is at hand!” - thus becoming the only known victim of Elizabeth to incorporate a pun at his dismemberment. He then fainted.
5YnO8 TIL that if you fall asleep on a Tarantino set they will take a picture of you with a 3ft. dildo named "Big Jerry" next to your face and put it on the wall of shame. If you take it it down, it gets enlarged and put up again. If you take it down again, it gets printed on t-shirts for the whole crew.
RjAl TIL that Simon wrote “The Sound of Silence” in his bathroom, where he turned off the lights to better concentrate. Then he’d play, in the dark, ‘Hello darkness, my old friend / I’ve come to talk with you again’.
6E6XY TIL that there are only two countries in the world Coca-Cola is not officially sold: North Korea and Cuba
YpOLA TIL 'Assload' and 'Buttload' are actual defined units of measure--the former being the maximum load of a donkey (about 8 bushels), the latter a large cask with a volume of 491 liters/108 Imperial gallons.