› added 6 years ago

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TIL Abraham Lincoln, prior to becoming President, was an avid boater and traveled on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers where his boat often got stuck on sandbars. In 1849 Lincoln invented a method for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals, making him the first and only U.S. President to receive a patent.

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ZoEo TIL Billy Joel received his high school diploma at age 43. In 1967 he was playing at a piano bar to help his mother make ends meet which interfered with his attendance, causing him to miss a crucial English exam. Decades later he completed the work.
Q6AL TIL that, unlike most bronze sculptures of Roman emperors, the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius was not melted down during the Middle Ages because Europeans of that time thought it was a statue of Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome.
j611E TIL that statues of biblical kings, located on the west facade of the Notre-Dame de Paris, were decapitated during the French Revolution because they were mistaken for statues of French kings
p8MW4 TIL that the song that became the "James Bond" theme started with the lyrics "I was born with this unlucky sneeze" and is named "Good sign, Bad sign"
QZlp TIL Steve Jobs was effectively paid $5,000 to create the game Breakout. Steve Wozniak worked for four straight days without sleep to reach the deadline, which wasn’t real, but something Jobs made up. Wozniak only received $375 while Jobs bought a farm in Oregon