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TIL a lawsuit between Gilbert O'Sullivan and Biz Markie over a sampling of "Alone Again" led to the requirement of licensing and fees to sample parts of song, which in turn made it prohibitively expensive to sample multiple songs into a new piece, which had been a common practice in hip hop

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yQVev TIL that William Powell wrote The Anarchist Cookbook at 19. He later said that “When I penned the book, I was angry and alienated. Today I realize that violence can't be used to prevent violence". He wished it would go out of print but had never owned the copyright.
8emy4 TIL that in the year 1240, the Talmud was 'placed on trial' after Nicholas Donin, a Jew who had converted to Catholicism, told the Pope that the Talmud insulted Jesus and the virgin Mary. The trial resulted in the Talmud being found guilty, and thousands of Jewish texts were burned
j6QGv TIL in 1930, Helen Adelaide Shelby patented a device for a skeleton in a dark room shrouded with ominous lighting, red lightbulbs for eyes, and a megaphone and film camera in its skull. The goal was to use it to question culprits and induce a supernatural experience that would urge them to confess
9YjVr TIL the first vending machine to sell live crabs debuted in 2010 in a train station in Nanjing. The machine sells about 200 live crabs a day, with prices from $2 to $7. A sign next to the machine states each crab will come out alive, offering refund of three live crabs for every dead one to pop out.
VD8D TIL if the federal government replaced the $1 bill with the $1 coin (and the US population accept the non paper currency), it would save the government approximately $184 million a year, or $5.5 billion over 30 years