› added 10 years ago

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TIL John Oliver has full creative freedom over Last Week Tonight, including free reign to criticize corporations, thanks to HBO’s ad-free subscription model

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via reddit.com

loNAV TIL that Tolkien’s original version of the Dark Lord Sauron in Lord of the Rings was a giant black cat....“Tevildo the prince of cats”
VMLvk TIL that according to rumour, the emperor Augustus, suspecting that his wife was trying to poison him, refused to eat anything except figs that he had picked himself. His wife smeared poison on the figs while they were still on the tree to preempt him.
Wk898 TIL Radar was developed as a consequence of the urgent need to counter Nazi bomber attacks. The British Radio Research Station was asked to investigate a radio-based "death ray", but found it was more practical to use radio to detect enemy aircraft
OoKX7 TIL minors will no longer be able to buy sodas and potatoes chips in Oaxaca, a state of Mexico
KYGPG TIL that the people in Pompeii did not become "stone statues" by the lava flowing by, but rather encapsulated under a layer of lava and their decomposed bodies leaving a void which arceologists filled with plaster to recreate the bodies that once was there and the postures in which they died.