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TIL Jay DeFeo created a work called "The Rose" that started at 9 x 7 feet. She would apply thick paint and chisel it away. It eventually was 11 feet tall and weighed over a ton. It was sealed in storage until conservators created a backing strong enough to support the heavy paint.

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awa9J TIL that about 16% of wild birds have been known to hybridize with other species of birds. The mallard can hybridize with at least 40 other species. The extent of hybridization calls into question the modern definition of "species".
lR7B TIL Confederate cavalry general Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He quit the group less than two years later. In 1875 he was invited to give a speech before an organization of black Southerners advocating racial reconciliation and equality. (Speech in Comments)
5dPp TIL Frank Zappa was invited to perform in Live Aid concert (to raise funds for relief of the Ethiopian famine) but he refused, calling the event “the biggest cocaine money laundering scheme of all time.”
x6AKb TIL that Napoleon's parents fought against the French conquest of Corsica. Napoleon was born three months after the conquest was successful, thus a French citizen and eventually its emperor.
wolR1 TIL the reason many African countries have the colours green, yellow and red on their flags is because of an Ethiopian influence. The colours of the flag of Ethiopia, have come to represent the pan-Africanist ideology because it avoided being taken over by a colonial power.