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TIL that author Douglas Adams once got an offering of £50,000 to write a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy calendar. A few weeks later, having done no work towards it, another call came saying the deal had fallen through but that he would still be paid half the fee. He celebrated with champagne.

oRNao TIL On Shrove Tuesday 1229 some University of Paris students got into fight over a bar tab and attacked a tavern. The students had benefit of clergy but the city guard killed some of them. The students responded with strike for two years until the school was given independence from local authority.
1aRJW TIL the word “spam” used in reference to e-communications (commonly emails) comes from a 1972 Monty Python sketch in which two customers are lowered into a restaurant and everything on the menu contains spam. The connection is that no matter want you want, you can’t get away from the unwanted spam.
jjZj TIL. The fastest processor EVER was an AMD FX, overclocked to 8.429 GHZ. Liquid nitrogen and helium was sprayed directly onto the CPU to prevent it from melting.
4kgbJ TIL of physio-kundalini syndrome, a scientific measure of spiritual enlightenment in Hinduism
0XZM TIL that during the Seige Of Malta, the Ottoman Turks tried to intimidate the Knights Hospitaller by executing their prisoners and floating them into the bay on crucifixes. The Knights responded by decaptating their prisoners and using cannons to fire their severed heads into the Turkish camp