› added 3 weeks ago

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Today I learned country music legend John Prine was 'discovered' by movie critic Roger Ebert, who wrote him a glowing review in the Chicago Tribune after wandering into a bar where he was playing. At the time, Prine was a working mailman.

Read more chicagomag.com

via reddit.com

PYwoO TIL of Thomas Jones, a 14-year-old who broke into Buckingham Palace in 1838 and was caught with Queen Victoria's underwear stuffed down his trousers. After breaking in twice more, Jones was sentenced to hard labour, and after incarceration on a prison ship would later become the town crier of Perth.
vPMOK TIL the only child of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI to survive the French Revolution was their daughter, Marie Thérèse. At 15, she spent over a year in solitary confinement with no books, letters, or writing tools. She lived 55 more years, dying in 1851.
l7okG TIL that life really might "flash before your eyes" upon death, according to EEG study of stroke victim by Univ. of British Columbia.
9wv17 TIL: During the filming of 'Dexter,' actor Jimmy Smits accidentally grabbed a real knife and stabbed a stuntman in the chest; the stuntman survived unharmed due to the blade hitting a post-it note sized piece of plastic covering his heart.
lxD5 TIL, that during the Italian invasion of France, 9 French soldiers defended the Pont Saint Louis against 5000 Italians for 10 days - of which 700 Italians were killed or injured. Eventually an Armistice was agreed.