› added 12 years ago

100

TIL that the US drinking age was raised from 18 to 21 due to the efforts of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). They successfully lobbied congress to create a law that imposed a federal penalty on any state that did not comply.

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691vX TIL that Medieval Europeans wore wooden sandals OVER their cloth shoes. These overshoes, called "pattens," kept the nicer cloth shoes clean from the mud and dung outside, and were removed when going indoors - especially for church.
P1jEE TIL that Michael Gambon was such a private person that when asked by a reporter about his wife he replied "What wife?" He later had an affair with a woman 25 years his junior and had 2 kids with her, but bequeathed nearly his whole fortune to his legal wife while his girlfriend got nothing.
Dkvr TIL of The Shaggs, a tone deaf and musically inept musical group from the 60s who were formed by their father, who was convinced they would one day become famous. They produced one album, Philosophy of the World, that, over time, became a highly sought after oddity by record collectors.
XmZ8 TIL Japanese Diplomat Chiune Sugihara and wife Yukiko stayed up handwriting thousands of Visas for entering Japan to Jews in Lithuania as Nazis neared, saving 6,000 lives while disobeying bosses’ orders to do it
GAWxN TIL that in 1969, when the Football War broke out between El Salvador and Honduras, the Salvadoran Salomon Vides fled to the jungle and survived alone 32 years until he was found and reunited with his family in 2001... and learned that the war only lasted 100 hours.