› added 11 years ago

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TIL that a year after its initial publication in 1908, Theodore Roosevelt (then-president of the U.S.), loved the children’s book “The Wind in the Willows” so much that he wrote the author saying that he had “read it, reread it, and have come to accept the characters as old friends”.

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via reddit.com

VddZ TIL that Corexit, the chemical dispersant used to “clean” the bp oil spill, is known to have high levels of toxicity in humans, with known links to lung damage, cancer, and other chemical poisoning effects. Corexit is still the go-to chemical for oil spills with no policies banning it in the US.
BXAy TIL the avant-garde band The Residents recorded an album of 40 one-minute songs, then purchased 40 one-minute advertising slots on San Francisco’s most popular Top-40 radio station and had the station play each track over the course of three days
NyoQ TIL that Ringo Starr’s first exposure to percussuion happened when he contracted tuberculosis at the age of 13 and was admitted into a sanatorium for 2 years. The staff encouraged him to join the hospital band where he used a makeshift mallet to strike against the cabinets next to his bed.
gMvbb TIL "Bird shit architecture" is a trend in urban planning that originated in the 1950's and persists to the present day. This type of architecture is designed to look good from a plane, but not practical for the actual residents of a city, like Brasilia
KOl7J TIL that in 1942, the HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen, a Dutch minesweeper based in the Netherlands East Indies, successfully disguised itself as a tropical island for several weeks in order to evade Japanese patrols, while withdrawing towards Australia after Allied setbacks in the region during the war.