› added 6 months ago

19

TIL that the character of Ned Flanders from The Simpsons was named after a street in Portland, Oregon. Series creator Matt Groening, who is from Portland, often draws inspiration from his hometown for character names.

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M71P8 TIL Many hotels including Hilton and Marriott collect guests’ used soaps, scrape the hair and stuff off, then melt them down to make new soaps.
JAn4 TIL Albert Einstein got out of an expensive divorce settlement by agreeing to pay his ex-wife alimony plus the full amount of his Nobel Prize - despite the fact he hadn’t won it yet
epWdk TIL Ray Combs, second presenter of Family Feud (1988 - 1993) was found dead hanging from his bed sheets in his hospital room, June 2nd 1996
p8RGN TIL that in an attempt to make his spy novels feel more authentic, author John Le Carré is credited with coining a number of terms for his fictional intelligence agency (terms like mole, honey trap, pavement artist, asset babysitter) which have become common terms used in real intelligence agencies.
QJkPd TIL the term "cliffhanger" is considered to have originated with Thomas Hardy's novel "A Pair of Blue Eyes," serialized in Tinsley's Magazine in 1872-3, in which a protagonists is left literally hanging off a cliff.