› added 6 years ago

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TIL Agatha Christie essentially invented the standard modern crime fiction formula that most TV shows follow: A murder is committed, multiple suspects (all concealing secrets), the detective gradually uncovers the secrets, discovering the most shocking twists towards the end and solving the crime.

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7Ge7 TIL Cosmo is over a hundred years old and started out as a literary magazine containing stories and articles from Nobel Prize winners Sinclair Lewis, George Bernard Shaw, and Ernest Hemingway. They didn’t give out shitty relationship advice and horrifying sex tips until 1965.
R7mY1 TIL of George Peter Metesky, better known as the "Mad Bomber," who terrorized New York City for 16 years in the 1940s and 1950s with explosives that he planted in theaters, terminals, libraries and offices.
PYwO TIL Some Russian yachts offer “pirate hunting” cruises off Somali coast where yacht owners provide AK-47’s for a chance to kill pirates.
1aVa7 TIL slang term "going to the crapper" is attributed to Thomas Crapper, a British plumber which his company sold toilet bowls with his name stamped on them. many believe that he was the inventor of the flushing toilet. the real inventor is John Harrington, therefore the phrase "going to the John".
OxnX TIL that, in July 1996, a British nursery teacher saved a classroom of children from an attacker with a machete. She was awarded with the George Medal, the second-highest honour that a civilian can receive, the following year.