› added 1 year ago

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TIL JT LeRoy wrote two novels on his tragic childhood, dubbing him a genius of his generation, sparking a race for their film rights. He was friends with celebs like Madonna & Winona Ryder, talking to them for hours over the phone. It turns out JT Leroy didn’t exist and was in fact entirely made up.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

AJL7 TIL American men receive 60% longer Federal prison sentences than women for the same crime.
lrWK TIL 40% of corn is used for ethanol to add to fuel; another 40% is used for livestock feed
W7eb4 TIL that US Olympic swimmer Iris Cummings is not only the last surviving athlete of the 1936 games, she was a WASP pilot in World War II and flew fighter planes.
Yr9x TIL Chairman Mao told the Japanese PM in 1972 not to apologise for what Japan did in WW2 because they destroyed the Nationalists and helped them come to power.
XEZJD TIL Chinese pianist Lang Lang learned to love classical music from a “Tom and Jerry” cartoon. He was just two-and-a-half years old, and was absorbed by the piece, Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody Number II, that both Tom and Jerry played on the piano