› added 12 years ago

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TIL Henry Paget, Cavalry commander at the Battle of Waterloo had his leg blown off by a cannon ball. When it happened he shouted to the Duke of Wellington “By God, sir, I’ve lost my leg!” — to which Wellington replied, “By God, sir, so you have!”

v1PJx TIL Jelly Roll Morton, at the age of 14 tricked his great-grandmother into believing he was a night watchman at a barrel house when in fact he was working as a piano player in a brothel. In that atmosphere, he often sang smutty lyrics; he took the nickname "Jelly Roll", which was slang for vagina.
gr84W TIL: One of the largest charitable donations made by a lottery winner came from a man in Canada. Two years after his wife died from cancer, Tom Crist won the lotto and donated everything to organizations fighting the disease. Canada doesn't tax winnings, so Crist donated $40 million.
oBPwY TIL There is a mental delusion called "The Truman Show delusion" where patients believed their lives were reality television shows. One traveled to NewYork to check whether the World Trade Center had actually fallen—believing 9/11 attacks to be an elaborate plot twist in his personal story line.
5VY5p TIL that while impressed by his book "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", the UK's science academy couldn't publish Isaac Newton's book due to being nearly bankrupt from spending all of its money printing the "History of Fish". Thankfully, scientist Edmond Halley's funded the printing.
JY4Vk TIL that Samuel Downing was the last surviving Revolutionary War veteran and only one to be photographed at the age of 102 in 1864.