› added 7 years ago

322

TIL at the beginning of his performance at Carnegie Hall, Andy Kaufman invited his "grandmother" to watch the show from a chair he had placed at the side of the stage. At the end of the show, she stood up, took her mask off and revealed that she was actually comedian Robin Williams in disguise.

Read more nytimes.com

via reddit.com

0BZp TIL of the St Scholastica Day riot. In 1355 at Oxford a dispute between two students and a tavern keeper escalated to a two-day riot where 93 people died. The entire incident was over the quality of drinks being served at the tavern
vPplD TIL during the rescue of Maersk Alabama Captain Phillips from Somali pirates the $30,000 in cash they obtained from the ship went missing, 2 Seal team six members were investigated but never charged. The money was never recovered
VBdlQ TIL that Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim is a tribute to the Dune franchise
p8L9G TIL of Dominomus, a female house sparrow that flew into a convention center in Netherlands and caused 23,000 of the dominos being prepared for “Domino Day 2005” to be knocked over. A hunting company hired to capture the bird failed, and finally just shot it, sparking an animal rights controversy.
9MgG TIL in 1969, the U.S. under Nixon went into nuclear readiness alert and flew nuclear armed fighter jets along Soviet airspace for three days. This was part of Nixon’s Madman Theory, in which he tried to give off the image that he was unstable to make sure the Soviets would never provoke the U.S.