› added 9 years ago

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TIL Maya Lin, designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in DC, faced harassment based on her ethnicity after her design was picked, including presidential candidate Ross Perot calling her an “egg roll”.

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via reddit.com

kDl5 TIL Karl Marx sent a letter to Abraham Lincoln congratulating him on causing the death of slavery
KNwQ TIL Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” was successfully released in Sweden as “Springtime for Hitler”, prompting similar titles for almost all his other films, such as Springtime for Space, Springtime for the Sheriff, Springtime for Frankenstein. (Space Balls, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein)
b9NE4 TIL that the early 19th-century American interpretation of Santa Claus was part of a movement to tone down the wild Christmas celebrations of the era, which included aggressive home invasions under the guise of wassailing (caroling), substantial premarital sex, and public displays of sexual deviancy
j6GXR TIL that John Wilkes Booth was present at the hanging of John Brown.
yVOgv TIL That Matt Bissonnette, the former DEVGRU operator who, under the pseudonym Mark Owen, wrote the first book about the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden was forced to turn over the almost $7 million he made from the book because he failed to get the book approved before it was published.