› added 1 year ago

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TIL that River Phoenix's birth name is River Bottom

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p848N TIL the inventor and promoter of leaded petrol, Thomas Midgley Jr, went on to also invent Freon - the first chloroflurocarbon. His last invention, a pully system to help him get out of bed while suffering polio, tangled up one day and strangled him.
a86jb TIL that Basil Fawlty was based on a real hotel owner that John Cleese had met whilst filming Monty Python
eLEL TIL Canada’s housing act once declared “Housing is not simply an economic commodity that can be bought and sold according to the vagaries of the market, but a social right”
lorEK TIL The first woman mathematician recorded by history was Hypatia of Alexandria (AD 350 - 415).
jv9j TIL that on this day in 1964, 3 civil rights activists trying to get to get black voters registered to vote in Mississippi were murdered by the KKK. National outrage over their death helped spur support for the Civil Rights Act.