› added 2 years ago

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TIL that upon losing the 2002 Senate Election in Minnesota, Former Vice President Walter Mondale became the first (and only) major party candidate in U.S. History to have lost a general election in all 50 states. He had lost in the other 49 states when he ran against President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

e0oPn TIL a random teen record store employee saved Billy Joel's career by launching a campaign to revive Piano Man months after Columbia Records left it for dead.
XEZEQ TIL about Victoria Woodhull, the traveling psychic that gave American tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt advice on investing in the gold market. Following her advice, Vanderbilt made a profit of $1.3 million, withdrawing just before the gold market crash of Black Friday on September 24, 1869.
xBbg TIL when Kurt Cobain committed suicide, then-President Clinton asked Eddie Vedder (who happened to be visiting the White House the next day) if he should address the nation about it. Vedder advised no, because of concerns it might spur copycat incidents.
ANZ9w TIL in 1856 paleontologist Amanz Gressly discovered a dinosaur named Gresslyosaurus. Years later he suffered a mental break and was institutionalized. When a friend visited him, he found Gressly agonized & hallucinating that he had transformed into the Gresslyosaurus. Gressly died shortly afterwards
QNPYE TIL: In the religion of ancient Rome, a haruspex was a person trained in haruspicy, the divination practice of inspecting the entrails of sacrificed animals, particularly the livers of sheep and poultry. The reading of omens specifically from the liver is known by the Greek term hepatoscopy.