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TIL The shortest correspondence in history was a telegraph between Victor Hugo and his publisher in 1862. Hugo was vacationing when Les Misérables was to be printed, and asked how his book was received by messaging the publisher a single-character “?”. Sales being brisk, the reply was a single “!”.

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Z8eJv TIL In 1913, Rabindranath Tagore became the first non-European writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Highly prolific, Tagore was also a composer and wrote the national anthems for both India and Bangladesh and he started painting in his 60s
BYZy TIL that in 1964 there was a poll asking white New Yorkers about civil rights: about 50% said nonviolent demonstrations were harmful to the cause. A large number spoke of black people getting “everything on a silver platter” and there being “reverse discrimination” against whites.
ONDL TIL that Japan didn’t sign the 1929 Geneva convention on treatment of POWs, and nearly half of all Americans captured by the Japanese in WW2 were killed in custody.
kO4dg TIL of Tondalo Hall, who got 30 years for failing to stop a man from abusing her child. The man who abused her child got 2 years.
Eb1p TIL that the first instance of Telephone hold music was a mistake that was caused by a loose piece of wire touching a metal girder at a factory. It turned the building into a giant radio antenna that would play music from a next-door radio station when people were put on hold.