› added 8 years ago

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TIL Ed Smith created a fake student called George Burdell when Georgia Tech sent him two enrolment forms by mistake. He signed Burdell up for all his classes and did all his work twice with minor changes so teachers wouldn’t catch him. The school awarded Burdell a bachelor’s and a master’s degree.

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XAmk TIL for learning the mohawk language and documenting it in the field of lingustics, Alexander Graham Bell was given the title of “honorary chief”.
GAnGN TIL Gandalfs stand at Minas Tirith in The Lord of The Rings books was based on a real bishop who mounted a hopeless defense against the Magyars until the emperor came to relieve him with an army of heavy knights.
OoeK6 TIL Margaret Hamilton who played the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz, went on the Mr Rogers show many years later to help show kids she was a nice woman and not just an old witch who wanted to get kids and their dogs
JlxV TIL John Newton, most famous for writing “Amazing Grace,” spent the early part of his life as a sailor, then captain, on several slaving ships before converting to a life of evangelical Christianity. Late in life he became an abolitionist, expressing regret that it had taken him so long to do so.
wL5oW TIL rumblestrutting is a guinea pig behavior in which they strut around each other shaking their butts low to emit a rumbling sound. It can sound a lot like purring, but it's part of their herd rituals to determine dominance