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TIL of the only person ever to return a Pulitzer Prize, journalist Janet Cooke, due to her fabricating a story of an 8-year-old heroin addict which triggered a city-wide search

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yVvjJ TIL The specific wording "the pen is mightier than the sword" was first used by author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839, the same guy whose intro sentence “It was a dark and stormy night.” inspired a contest for the worst opening sentence for a novel.
Lk6xm TIL the actors on Mad Men were smoking Ecstacy herbal cigarettes, that have no tobacco or nicotine in them, partly because actors smoking real cigarettes get agitated and nervous according to the show creator.
nWLd TIL that there is a brain-eating amoeba (Naegleria Fowleri) that lives in fresh-water bodies. It can kill a human in 7 days. Death rate is 98% and there is no effective treatment against it.
9BE7 TIL The Iron Maiden, a medieval torture device, never actually existed for that purpose. It was created by a museum curator when he added spikes to a female form sarcophagus.
yjKl TIL Ravens have always been kept at the Tower Of London. When Charles II (a very superstitious Monarch) asked for the Ravens to be removed, he was advised that if the Ravens were removed, The Tower would crumble and a great harm would befall the nation.