› added 5 years ago

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TIL That in 1917, 7 years after Mark Twain's death, two spiritualist mediums claimed that Twain’s ghost had dictated them a new novel via Ouija Board. The novel was published, received very poor reviews and the book publisher was prosecuted by the Twain estate.

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lo76a Catching "cooties"—it's not just fodder for playground politics. What if a single hair on your head, the oils on your fingertips, or one of the thousands of droplets of saliva you expel each time you cough had the potential to jeopardize a multibillion-dollar interplanetary mission?
6E77Y TIL that there is a 'copyleft', distinguished from copyright, is the practice of offering people the right to freely distribute copies and modified versions of a work with the stipulation that the same rights be preserved in derivative works created later.
g1jW TIL in WW2, US soldiers often shaped pieces of plexiglass from downed planes into pistol grips, so they can put pics of their wives and girlfriends on their pistols (Pics in link)
OobeX TIL for the film Cape Fear, Robert De Niro reportedly took his body fat down to 4%. De Niro also paid a doctor $5,000 to grind down his teeth for the role to give the character 'Max Cady' a more menacing look, later paying $20,000 to have his teeth restored after the film production was over.
6oX8 TIL that in 1942, 13-year-old Seaman Calvin Graham was decorated for valor in battle. Then his mother learned where he’d been and revealed his secret to the Navy.